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Minneapolis Public Sciiools 



COURSE OF STUDY 



IN 



GEOGRAPHY 



AND 



RELATED READING 



FOR 



Intermediate and Grammar 

Grades 

Minneapolis Printing Company 
1905 



I fw) Copies ii@Gmvm 

j OCT 4 iyo5 

COPY S. 






Copyright, 1905, by S. L. Heeter. 



LC Control Number 




tinp96 026030 



OBJECTS IN PRESENTING A COURSE OF STUDY IN 
GEOGRAPHY AND RELATED HISTORY. 



I. The first purpose in offering to teachers an outHne of 
the course of study in geography along with suggestions and 
directions for teaching, is to put before them a richer field of 
material, to enlarge their resources, and to remove limitations 
rather than place them upon teachers. 

No teacher can do successful work who is confined to the text 
book in hand. The process of education is a process of ''con- 
tinued reconstruction of an individual's experience", and the 
means — the materials in the hands of the teacher — are not to be 
found in text books, not even inside the school room. That 
teacher is most successful in the disposition of her subject-mat- 
ter, who, systematically and sympathetically, reaches into the 
outside world of life, gathers up its related interests, and focuses 
them upon the growing child. With this in view, the true 
"course of study" is in the great outside world of fact and 
interest concerning nature and man, and the true teacher is to 
select and organize her materials from the complexity of phe- 
nomena and life about her, from the sky over her head, from the 
air she breathes, the ground on which she walks, from the people 
with whom she talks, the books she reads, and so on. 

The course of study as herein outlined and developed is only 
suggestive with the hope that it may be an aid to the teacher in 
selecting and organizing her material, and in presenting the same 
to the children. 

II. A second purpose must inevitably follow as a consequence, 
— an enrichment of the so-called course of study. It will end 
in a richer field of material for the children of the schools, a 



greater power of the school over their lives, a wider acquain- 
tanceship with the world, broader views of life, and a greater 
sum-total of character and culture. 

The first purpose, then, aims at the teacher and the enlarge- 
ment of her resources. The real end is the larger, richer and 
happier field of experiences for the children. 



ORDER OF DEVELOPMENT. 

I Subject-matter. 

(a) Primary grades. Home geography and nature study. 

(b) Intermediate grades. National and social geography. 
The personal element. The study of the peoples and 
their varied interests in the different sections of the 
world, relating the elementary facts of history to 
geography. 

(c) Grammar grades. Geography in its scientific aspect. 
The causal idea. A second spiral of the continents, 
giving special attention to the geographic influences 
in their relation to life. 

II. Mental Faculties Exercised and Developed. 

(a) Powers of observation. The geography of the primary 
grades is essentially perceptive, and results in an exer- 
cise and growth of the powers of observation, — a 
building up of the sense-world. 

(b) Imagination. The geography of the intermediate 
grades calls more upon the imagination. As children 
are led for the first time to other lands, they see, in the 
mind's eye, — in imagery, the various peoples with all 
their characteristic features, customs, surroundings, 
etc. 



(c) The Reason. The grammar grade geography is essen- 
tially a rational study As children take up the study 
of the continents for this last round, the prevalence of 
the idea of cause and effect makes it a more scientific 
form of geography, and pre-eminently a rational study. 
There is no study in the school course, when rightly 
taught, that will present so many problems for 
solution. 

(d) Memory. All thru the school course the work in geog- 
raphy calls for the exercise of the memory. Too 
many times it has been the only faculty appealed to, 
but even with modern methods of teaching and with 
a view of the subject of geography contemporary to 
modern scholarship, there is no doubt but that geog- 
raphy in every year of the school course must make 
its appeal to the retentive powers of the mind. 

(e) Powers in General. All courses of study, if planned 
in harmony with child experience and the natural order 
of growth, should not only enable each child to "find 
himself", to discover his inborn capacities and 
powers, but should bring him to do, in the fullest 
degree and in the most perfect manner, that for 
w^hich he has an aptitude, leading him with ever- 
increasing freedom and pleasure in the ways that 
nature has pointed out. In this way, only, is the 
school to contribute to each individual's efficiency, 
serviceableness and happiness. In other words, it is 
one of the great purposes of this course in geog- 
raphy to environ each child with such a rich and 
attractive field of experiences as to lift him out of 
his ordinary range of experiences and to give free 
play to all his powers. The aim is, then, thru an 
appeal to spontaneity and interest , to lead to 
free thinking, concentrated attention, voluntary co- 
operation and thus finally to a vigorous and active 
will — one of the chief ends in education, 



RELATION OF DEVELOPMENT WORK TO DRILL. 



The successful teaching of geography is not all development 
work. The pupils ought not to study synthetically in every 
lesson and in all grades. There has been a decided reaction 
against drill by too many of our best teachers of geography in 
an effort to give the subject the prerogatives of a science, and 
abolish it simply as an information subject with its mass of 
unrelated facts. 

The old geography was burdened by its own shortcomings and 
so narrow was the conception of its teachers that it began and 
ended in drill on locations and isolated facts. The ''new geog- 
raphy", emphasizing cause and effect, has established its 
position among the sciences, and too many of its teachers have 
gone to another extreme in an effort to present all by laboratory 
methods, — synthetic steps, ending in carefulh'-worked-up 
descriptions and logical explanations. Some geographer has 
recently expressed it in his very scientific lore, that the ' 'labora- 
tory method is the only method in geography, as it affords 
pupils opportunity to proceed, by observation and experiment, 
by guarded hypotheses and careful verification from the known 
to the unknown, on the well-founded assumption of the uniform- 
ity of nature". 

Now the average teacher of boys and girls in our schools need 
not spend much time in working herself up to the scientist's con- 
ception above quoted, but she should know that any practical, 
common-sense wa}- of presenting any subject, as Greece, Brazil, 
Egypt or Japan, calls for a certain amount of inductive approach, 
a certain amount of description and illustrative teaching, and 
then, after all the rich content has been developed, she should 
not conclude her study of any country without some old- 
fashioned drill upon world-known facts and locations. 



But very little good teaching has its beginning in drill and 
memorizing, but a great deal of it ends there, in organization, 
generalizations, and memorizing. The time is past when good 
teachers will require children to memorize boundaries of all 
states and countries, lengths of insignificant rivers, heights of 
mountains, sizes of all cities, populations of states, and so on; 
but no teaching of Europe, for example, is complete, no matter 
how rich the study has been in development and description, 
without a thoro and systematic drill on facts of interest about 
the countries, capitals, governments, cities, rivers, physical 
features, coast line, etc. Development, then, as a rule, will 
furnish the good teacher the way of approach, while drill will 
conclude the study of each region. 



NATURE STUDY AND GEOGRAPHY. 



The study of geography in the grades is closely related to na- 
ture study; in fact, so intimate is the correlation that in the 
primary grades the two subjects are scarcely differentiated. 
There are no lessons in geography, distinctly such, in the first 
two years of the school life. They are essentially lessons in na- 
ture study. It is the study of nature's ever-present forms and 
most striking phenomena that lays the basis for all work in 
geography. 

In the third grade, the so-called home geography is scarcely 
more than a systematic observation of the home environ- 
ment of children. It all aims at a broader and somewhat or- 
ganized form of knowledge of local land and water forms, of 
weather and season changes; it aims at a more general acquain- 
tance with the life, history and interests of the community or 
the home city, ending in real and imaginary journeys to local 
points of interest. 



Besides this regular home geography in the third grade, there 
is a special form of nature study which is carried along independ- 
ent of the geography lessons, and becomes a basis for a con- 
siderable portion of the language work. This nature work is 
carefully outlined in a separate course and consists in a study 
of common plants, flowers, seeds, fruits, domestic animals, wild 
animals, insects, birds, and so on. 

So far as the third grade is concerned, then, there is a definite 
period in the school program set aside for home geography, 
and another period for nature study, scarcely dissociated. 

The same plan is followed thruout the fourth and fifth grades 
and on thru the B sixth. Nature study appears in one form or 
another at periods separate, as a rule, from geography, yet there 
is an organic relationship between nature study and the geo- 
graphy work of these grades. 

So while the nature study in the first grades prepares the way 
for formal geography, and while, in the third grade, it stands in 
intimate relationship to all geography teaching, there is a certain 
amount of nature teachin g that should find its way into the fourth, 
fifth and sixth years of school life, not only because it is so 
closely related to "school subjects", but because of the impor- 
tance that acquaintanceship with nature and contact with nature 
hold] in the educative process. The aim is to keep nature in 
close relation to child life in the process of elementary education . 

In view of the fact that modern life tends to drift away from 
nature into artificialities of every sort, there will be an ever- 
increasing need for more ''Nature Study and Life" in the 
primary and intermediate school grades. Doing something 
with nature must ever form a large factor in education. This 
alone, as Froebel says, can prevent education from becoming 
hollow and empty, artificial, and a wholly second-hand affair. In 
other words, as Hodge puts it, ''the purpose of Nature Study is 
learning those things in nature that are best worth knowing, 
to the end of doing those things that make life most worth living" _ 



HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY. 



In the fourth and fifth grades the two subjects, geography and 
history, are considered together. In these grades the children 
make, for their first time, a study of the geography of the 
different leading countries of the world. It is a movement from 
home outward. It all aims at a larger acquaintance with the 
people who inhabit the different lands, and with the facts of 
interest concerning them. These facts of interest may be 
geographic or historic. As children are led, for the first time, to 
a study of Massachusetts, Kentucky, Holland, Greece or Rome, 
they are not interested so much in geographic facts as such and 
facts of history wholly isolated, as they are in the life side, — 
the incidents, anecdotes, stories, pictures, views, homes, cos- 
tumes, habits, etc., of the various peoples. It is not the time 
for geography as a science based upon the causal idea, nor is it 
a time for children to lay hold of history as an ' ' unbroken stream 
of life", but it is a time when the study of each particular locality 
in geography should be supported and enriched with sufficient 
descriptive matter, even historic, to give interest in and value to 
the subject presented. 

History, then, should come to the help of geography in the 
study of Boston, Quebec, Minneapolis, Athens, Rome, St. 
Petersburg, and so on. It is not a connected or consecutive 
history. It is not history taught at a separate period. It is 
descriptive geography illumined at the proper time by related 
historic facts. It is the age in the life of the children when they 
demand stories of real life. They are not so much concerned 
with the time-element nor with the adult's carefully- worked-out 
''back-ground of history", as with events, men, heroes, inter- 
esting places, etc. 



10 



A collection and an assimilation of numerous geographic and 
historic facts worth knowing are to be the results to children in 
the intermediate grades, while in the upper grades, all their 
material is to be more carefully organized, generalized, and co- 
ordinated into relations of cause and effect. Children in the 
lower grades are not in the active, rational period of school life. 
Neither the broad aspects of history, nor geography as a science 
should be attempted in the first round of study of the continents. 
The imagination is the predominant intellectual faculty of the 
intermediate pupils. The aim is not to fill the mind with 
information. Enthusiasm and impression hold a more im- 
important place in their lives at this time than a pretence to 
thoroness in working out causes and effects. 

The child is a rational being, 'tis true, but at an early age his 
powers of reason are implicit rather than explicit. He can be 
driven and his reasoning can be forced, but not before the upper 
grammar grades should geography assume the significance of a 
science with the causal idea the ruling one. Then, also, should 
come history as a separate subject where pupils may hope to 
work out its unity; then, also, rational arithmetic, and technical 
grammar, if they are to come at all in the grades. The nascent 
period for the rational powers of children comes late in the grades. 



11 



THE TEXT BOOK AND GEOGRAPHY. 



The teacher rather than the text book should lead the class. 
The text is only an aid — an arbitrary aid, — not governed by a 
regular order or by fixed rules. The mere hearing of lessons 
should not be allowed to take the place of actual teaching. 
Lessons should rarely be assigned by pages, as such. Every 
stage of the subject should be approached and introduced 
naturally, and topical assignments should be the general method. 
It follows, then, that many pages of the text may not be studied 
as carefully as others, possibly some pages not at all. The 
memorizing of definitions or other portions of a text, or of 
matter copied on the board and in blank books, is a mechanical 
form of teaching and is of but little value. 

Time should not be wasted on unimportant details. The 
more influential features and countries will naturally receive 
more attention and fuller treatment. No matter how good a 
text may be, no thotightful teacher will attach equal import- 
ance to all the facts in the book. Many of the single and 
isolated statements found in political geographies should be left 
untaught. The aim always should be to organize the teaching 
about typical, well-chosen topics which will permit of more 
elaborate development, and such relation of facts as will give 
unity, value and interest to the matter presented. The facts 
developed will be gathered from more than one book. They 
will grow out of the teacher's broader experience, more varied 
reading, and larger resources, as well as out of the pupil's interest 
in preparation, supplementary reading, and individual investi- 
gation. 

The teacher must not only know her class and each individual's 
possessions and resovirces, but she must know definitely what 
she wishes to teach. There is no subject in the school course 
that requires more extensive daily preparation, greater discern- 
ment, and more collateral reading on the part of the teacher. 
What the children get out of their geography study will depend 
almost entirely upon the fields into which the teacher leads 
them and upon the inspiration, the daily plan, and the order 
attending the study. 



12 



READING AND GEOGRAPHY. 



Reading is the farthest reaching acquisition of the child in the 
school. No agency is capable of becoming so effective for disci- 
pline, for joy and for information. No other study is so practi- 
cal and at the same time so cultural if rightly presented, and 
yet no other study when unwisely taught conduces to mental 
habits so bad. 

Children in the grades do not read enough. In most cases 
they will read all they can get their hands on, but teachers 
and school authorities are too prone to hold them to the adopted 
texts. Reading at the "regular time" is an imposed duty 
while reading for the joy of it along supplementary lines in 
history, travel, geography and clean fiction is denied. There 
is such an abundance of excellent material that might come 
to the help of geography and history if only a part of the tradi- 
tional school-reading and school-readers were abolished. 

No teacher can teach the geography of Greece or Rome, for 
example, and confine herself to the text in hand. There is a 
rich field of reading, treating of Gods, Heroes and Men, that 
should accompany such study. It is not necessary that the 
regular reading period be given over to supplementary geogra- 
phy. While most of the materials chosen for the regular read- 
ing hour should be from the ''literature of power" — writings 
that by reason of their purity, beauty and spiritual strength 
have become classic — 3^et, there should be in the schools some- 
where much supplementary reading of legends, myths, heroes, 
adventures, travels, descriptions, historic and geographic poetry, 
giving the children a familiarity with allusions, a classic lore, 
a broader conception of life and the world, and a sure literary 
foundation. So it is believed that no other subject can so 
supplement and enforce the study of geograph}^ and its related 
history as much as can reading, — silent reading, school reading, 
home reading. 



13 



PICTURE STUDY AND GEOGRAPHY. 



Verbal description in the study of geography has a wide 
field of possibilities, and the greatest reliance must be placed 
upon it; but no matter how logically and systematically it may 
be developed, it has its limits. Words fail many times to give 
adequate ideas of form or color or phenomena or scene, such as 
may be pictorially or objectively presented. Teachers are be- 
coming more and more alive to the teaching value of pictures, 
and their free use to supplement geography can not be too 
highly commended. 

Pictorial representation, appealing to the mind thru the eye, 
has become an indispensable adjunct in teaching geography. 
Every teacher should read the chapter on ''Pictures, Models 
and the Globe", from Redway's New Basis of Geography. 
Several publishing houses now make the trade in pictures their 
chief business. It is the work of a long time for a teacher to 
make a useful and usable collection of pictures. 

Many subjects appearing in the geograph}^ course suggest 
an abundance of pictorial teaching: the study of the American 
Indian and the Pioneer and Primitive Life, prominent views 
in the United States, the prominent buildings of large cities, 
the famous land-marks, historic spots, monuments, well known 
points of interest to the traveler, etc. ; the study of the Eskimo 
life, the Aztecs, the tropic lands, Japan, China, Greece, Rome, 
France, the Rhine, Egypt, and so on. 

Both the Perry and the Brown Picture Companies publish 
many good subjects. The Earl Thompson Co. of Syracuse, 
N. Y., publishes several hundred blue-prints to supplement the 
geography of all countries. The Hood Sarsaparilla Co., of Lowell, 
Mass., is sending some very helpful pictures with accompany- 
ing descriptions. The Cosmos Picture Company of New York 



14 



is offering schools some very valuable collections for pictured 
geography and history. Teachers everywhere find the Stoddard 
pictures a permanent value in teaching and a never-failing in- 
terest to children. Teachers frequently draw pictures profusely 
from magazines, illustrated articles, newspapers,- etc. 

The practice on the part of both teachers and pupils of bring- 
ing good geographical pictures into the school room is com- 
mendable, but there is danger of confusion, disorder, cheapness 
in a too miscellaneous and unrelated assortment. Most of the 
modern texts in geography contain well executed and carefully 
selected pictures. Children should be led to a study of the pic- 
ture as well as of the printed page. Many inferences can be 
drawn often concerning customs, modes of life, the climate, 
advancement, etc. 

The stereopticon is destined to a more general use in the 
public schools, and in time it is to become one of the most 
efficient means of education. The object will be education and 
not entertainment. Views are easily obtained illustrating the 
whole range of geography, history, physiology, works of art, 
industry, manufactures, literature, and, in fact, nearly every 
phase of the course of study. A caution to be observed here is 
that the views should be of the highest cjuality both in the choice 
of subjects and in workmanship. The slides should be systemat 
ically arranged, the picture study should be properly correlated, 
and each particular lesson should be definite in purpose even if 
informal and conversational in character. 

Probably one of the most effective means of pictorial study 
lies in the proper use of the stereoscope, which gives to the pic- 
tures a prominent relief and the appearance of solid form. 
The excessive cost of a working outfit has kept them from 
general use in the schools. 



15 



LANGUAGE AND GEOGRAPHY. 



There is a vital relation between geography and both oral and 
written language. There is no subject in the school course, if 
rightly presented, that offers greater opportunity for language 
drill. The description of races, costumes, manners, homes, in- 
dustries, cities, great buildings, famous landscapes, and scenery, 
historic spots, climatic and physical influences, along with all 
the picture study, the story telling, narratives, imaginary 
journeys, biography, mythology, etc., affords a foundation for 
a good portion of the language work. 

The teacher should put a premium on descriptive geography. 
The recitation is the time to develop it, to organize it, to give 
opportunity to express it and reproduce it. The clean, well 
developed, rounded out topical recitation should be the con- 
stant aim in all grades. Every recitation in geography should 
be a lesson in language as well. 

The teacher's danger lies in too much talking on her own part. 
She should not take all the training intended for her children. 
She should be interested not only in what she hands out to them, 
but in what she is able to get back. The teacher should see to 
it that every geography lesson is mindful of the children's 
opportunity to express themselves. 

Not only is the geography time the seat of much language 
drill, but the regular period set aside each day for language 
should come frequently to the help of the geography. As the 
class is working with Greece or Rome, for example, the compo- 
sition period may be given to a development of careftilly written 
paragraphs on such subjects as Paris, Helen, Priam, Achilles, 
Ulysses, Xerxes, Leonidas, Thermopolas, The Acropolis, The 
Parthenon, Olympus, The Forum, The Arches, Julius C?esar, 
Hannibal, etc., etc. So all along the course. Kentucky may 



16 



suggest Daniel Boone; Virginia, Pocahontas; Chicago, the great 
fire; Minneapohs, the flour mills; Switzerland, William Tell; 
Egypt, the Pyramids; France, The Gleaners, the Man with the 
Hoe, The Angelus, or the French Peasantry, etc. 

There is danger, also, of too much written work. Composi- 
tions should not be written merely for ''busy work". No 
teacher should form habits of asking for written work which she 
leaves uncorrected. There is no more excuse for allowing errors 
to go uncorrected in written language than in the spoken. 
Here is the safe rule for determining the amount of written 
work a teacher should demand, — just the amount she can cor- 
rect promptly and accurately. 

There is one other suggestion timely for teachers of the in- 
termediate grades. There is not enough emphasis placed upon 
paragraph writing. Well organized and carefully written para- 
graphs upon specific topics should be the basis for all compo- 
sition work in the fourth, fifth and sixth grades. As a rule, 
teachers assign subjects too far away from the school life and 
the interests of the children. The subjects are also too broad, 
too indefinite. Children should be held for greater accuracy of 
statement, for more systematic development, and for more 
definiteness in the composition of single paragraphs. ' ' This 
one thing I do." This one thing I develop in this paragraph. 



17 



SPELLING AND GEOGRAPHY. 



The spelling work of the pubhc schools and the process of 
learning to spell stand in closer connection to the regular school 
subjects than to any drill-book in spelling. In fact, the best 
spelling book is that one which grows out of the course of study 
in the different grades of any school system. 

In the process of education, as children go up thru the grades, 
the course of study is constantly offering to them an ever en- 
larging vocabulary, and there is always a felt need for the 
mastery of new meanings and new forms of words. It is a 
recognized need of this mastery of meanings and spelling, 
growing out of the school subjects and school life, that should 
determine the make-up of the ''spelling book". There is a 
place for a formal spelling book in the school, if its words 
are rightly chosen and its lessons properly related to the school 
program. There may be some justice and profit, according to 
the argument of many, in compelling children to memorize long 
lists of words without much regard to their meaning and use, 
and yet, there is only one standard we dare place upon children. 
We should hold them responsible for the spelling of just those 
words which they know how to use and feel called upon to use. 
The school life is continually calling forth the use of new words. 
This is the legitimate field for the spelling drills, whether it is in 
geography, history, arithmetic, nature study, or in the regular 
spelling book. 

So far as geography is concerned, then, pupils should be led 
to master the spelling of common geographical and historic 
names. The names of the leading states, countries, capitals, 
great rivers, mountains, the common terms, as zone, hemisphere, 
continent, parallel, meridians, etc., etc. Insignificant names 
should be avoided. There are many such names that rarely 
come up, as Maracaibo, Guayaquil, Pernambuco, Karpathian, 
Baluchistan, Kilimanjaro, etc., and their spelling should not be 
taught unless they are used in written work. No misspelled 
geographical words should be tolerated in the written work. 



18 



CONSTRUCTIVE AND OBSERVATIONAL WORK IN 
GEOGRAPHY. 



There are many forms of laboratory work that can supple- 
ment the geography study. 

In the primary grades the observation study of the school's 
own district is the true key to the understanding of the forms 
and phenomena both at home and in foreign lands. The school 
excursion and field work in home geography and nature study 
is worth far more than printed definitions and descriptions. 

It is not always absolutely necessary to make school excur- 
sions. There is not even enough indoor study of specimens of 
rock, soil, ores, raw materials, and finished products. Weather 
observations and records can be more generally made from the 
observations to and from school and from the school window. 
There is not enough indoor study of pictures, not enough use 
of the stereoscope and stereopticon. More real, live indoor 
study will make less imperative the outdoor excursions. 

But the excursion has its place in all grades. Not only in the 
home geography and nature study but in the study of indus- 
tries, and in the visits to mills, quarries, markets, in the study of 
out-door features and the work of nature, along valleys, river- 
beds, etc. All forms and phenomena of geographic character 
within the reach of the school should, at some proper time in 
the course, come under the systematic observation of the school. 

A legitimate form of laboratory work supplementing the 
geography is that of modeling. The sand or clay gives a tem- 
porary form of modeling in the primary grades; the salt and 
flour, or pulp, or papier-mache gives a more permanent relief- 
work in the middle grades, and in the grammar grades the chalk 
and pencil modeling should serve better in representing the 
contour of surface and the various land and water forms. 



19 



A word of emphasis as to the \"alue of chalk and pencil 
modeling in the upper grades is not out of place. This form of 
modeling consists in picturing with the chalk the general surface 
features, such as slopes, mountains, valleys, rivers, basins, 
peninsulas, etc., by means of contrast of light and shade. The 
pupils themselves should be taught to represent their ment.al 
pictures of such relief features on blackboard and on suitable 
paper, using soft pencil or crayon. Maps built up in this way 
make excellent substitutes for relief maps and should be of great 
assistance, especially in the study of the continents as wholes. 
Each teacher should, therefore, not only make much use of 
relief and physical maps but should lead her children into skill 
in building up such maps. 

Another form of manual work belonging properly to a work- 
period preparatory to the recitation is that of map making, 
map drawing, and graphic representations. Much use should 
be made of outline maps, first reproduced from the book or wall- 
map, then from memory. These outline maps should be drawn 
off-hand, and should seldom be attempted with individual 
states and isolated political divisions. They should be con- 
fined to the continents as units and to the states or countries 
in their relation to each other. Highly colored and artistically 
decorated political maps are, as a rule, not worth the time put 
upon them. Special maps showing the areas of production, 
rainfall, industrial belts, etc., call for colors, and are to be much 
encouraged. There is some place also for both original and 
copied graphic representations of important statistics. There 
are many devices and schemes for showing areas of important 
countries, population of cities, exports and other statistics. 
To represent graphically such statistics as are worth memoriz- 
ing is an excellent approach to the necessary drill on such facts. 

All thru the course, the school should endeavor to allow as 
much as possible of its industrial work and occupations to grow 
out of the school life. It is not advisable to stop a geography 
lesson on the American Indian to take up some of the Indian 
activities; but if there be a period set aside for general-work, 
that would certainly be the time to build birch canoes, to do 
some clay work or introduce the basketry. So, all along, 
there is some industrial activity that can legitimately claim 



20 



a place when the child is making a study of the Eskimo, or the 
Laplanders, the Japanese, Chinese, or the Arabians. 

The regular drawing work of the school, should give to 
the children such a. training that they may illustrate the sub- 
ject in hand, whether it be in map-making,- globe-making, 
chalk-modeling, off-hand sketches, drawings of wigwams, canoes, 
pottery, Japanese lanterns, fans, the Grecian architectural 
orders, or Egyptian pyramids. 



21 



GEOGRAPHY AND THE OTHER SCIENCES. 



The ''new basis of geography" has raised the study to the 
nature and scope of a science. It is the science which sets forth 
in an elementary way the relations between human activities and 
geographic environment. This conception of geography, so re- 
cent so far as the American schools is concerned, is that of a 
subject ' 'which relates the sciences of nature and the sciences of 
man". It is a study which combines, relates, compares, and 
interprets a great mass of facts which bear upon the supremely 
interesting subject of man and his home. Redway says, ''So 
presented, it lays the basis for systematic study of the descrip- 
tive sciences on the one hand and of man's political and economic 
development on the other". 

A student cannot go far in the study of Yellowstone, Yosemite, 
the Andes, Salt Lake, The Palisades, etc., until he runs aground 
in the legitimate fields of geography and finds himself encroach- 
ing upon the territory of botany, zoology, geology, chemistry, 
physics, mineralogy, and so on. So in the discussion of tides, 
currents, winds, many facts must go unexplained without the 
principles of natural philosophy. One cannot study the earth's 
relation to other planets without approaching the introduction 
to astronomy; so in the study of the people of various lands the 
topics may take the direction of physiography, sociology, 
economics, ethnology, etc. 

No school or teacher can be justified in giving geography any 
large part in the course of study unless the study be conceived 
as a complex and composite subject closely related to, in fact 
underlying, tnost all other sciences. 



22 



SYNOPSIS OF THE COURSE OF STUDY BY GRADES. 

FOURTH GRADE. B CLASS. 

From Home Outward. 

(a) Map making and map reading. 

(b) Geographic forms at home and abroad. 

(c) A movement from MinneapoHs outward to a general 
idea of the earth. 

(d) General idea of the people of the world. 

(e) A study of the greater regions of North America, thru a 
detailed treatment of the primitive and pioneer life of 
the continent. The American Indian. The Coming 
of the White Man. Hiawatha. Stories of Minnesota. 

• The Upper Mississippi. The Great Lakes and Mis- 
sissippi Valley. The Eastern Regions. The Great 
Plains, Rocky Mountains and the West. The South- 
west. The Frozen North. 

FOURTH GRADE. A CLASS. 

North America and United States. 

(a) General view of the physical features and political 
divisions of North America. 

(b) Study of the United States as a unit. 

(c) Sectional study of the United States and related his- 
tory stories of each section. 

FIFTH GRADE. B CLASS. 
The First Round of the Continents. 

(a) A brief view of the earth as a unit. 

(b) South America. General study. The building up of 
its relief. A study of the great physical divisions with 
special emphasis on their relation to the people. Facts 
of interest concerning the people. 



23 



(c) Asi5. The Eastern Hemisphere. The general cHmate 
and physical features of the continent. Special at- 
tention to the leading nationalities only, as Japan, 
China, India, Persia, and the Land of the Bible. 

(d) Africa. The continent as a whole. Special study of 
Egypt arid the Nile Valley. The Sahara. The Soudan. 
Congo Region. South and Southeastern Africa. 

(e) Australia. A few lessons on the descriptive geography 
of Australia and the Islands. 

FIFTH GRADE. A CLASS. 
Europe. 

(a) A study of the personal and life aspect of the conti- 
tinent. Almost a half-year is given to a study of the 
leading nationalities or peoples of Europe. A study of 
the personal and life aspect of the continent guides 
the teacher. A rich field of closely related history 
accompanies the geography of Greece, Rome, The 
Rhine, Switzerland, France, England, etc. 

Review of the Geography of the World: 

(b) The last month of the fifth year is devoted to a 
practical drill on geographic facts of the different 
continents. This brings the intermediate geo- 
graphy work to a close. 

SIXTH GRADE. B CLASS. 

Mathematical Geography. 

A study of the form and size of the earth. Its rotation. 
Latitude. Longitude. Parallels. Meridians. Hemi- 
spheres of light. Standard Time. Relation of the 
earth to the sun. Inclination of the axis. Revolu- 
tion of the earth. Change of seasons. Zones, etc. 
Physical Geography. 

Zones of light and heat. Torrid zone of heat. Equa- 
torial storms, cyclones, monsoons. Equatorial 
ocean currents. Trades. Anti-trades. The Gulf Stream. 
Variable winds. Rainless districts. Plant zones. 
Animal zones. Race zones. 



24 



SIXTH GRADE. A CLASS. 

Political and Commercial Geography. 

(a) North America. 

(b) The United States as a unit. Extent, outHne, rehef, 
chmate, product belts. 

(c) A sectional study, giving special emphasis to the study 
of typical topics in the states and to the development 
of the causal idea. 

(d) Political divisions and possessions of the continent. 
Canada. Mexico. The West Indies. Central Amer- 
ica. Hawaiian Islands. Philippines. (Review and 
drill) . 



SEVENTH GRADE. B CLASS. 

Second Round of the Continents. 

In this grade the continents, South America, Asia, Africa and 
Australia are studied again and for the last time. 

The great physical and climatic influences are noted in particu- 
lar, and the geography work becomes more economic and com- 
mercial in its nature. Typical topics are worked out and de- 
veloped in the study of each continent. The nationality, as a 
rule, is the unit of study; but all minor topics, such as the physical, 
climatic, political, industrial and social influences are studied 
in relation to the larger topics, the nationality. The ideas of 
cause and effect are always prominent. 

About one-fourth or one-third of the time allowed to each 
continent is devoted to memory drill on geographic facts. 

SEVENTH GRADE. A CLASS 

European Nationalities. 

(a) Europe. (See the suggestions under B Seventh.) 

(b) Review of the important geographical facts of the 
world. 



25 



OUTLINE OF THE COURSE IN GEOGRAPHY 

BY GRADES. 



Basis for Fourth Grade Geography. 

All mental activity begins with sense perception. The 
formal education of a child begins thru the channels of the 
senses. All mental growth presupposes sense activity. When 
the child enters school at the age of six, he already has no small 
degree of education thru six 3^ears of contact with the world 
about him. If he is a normal child he has been an active one, 
and the fatal blunder of the school too often has been that it 
has shut off the entering child from the outside world of nature 
and thus has checked the natural learning process and imposed 
another, — a more formal, book process, and a less joyful one. 

For the first three grades there can be nothing much beyond 
home geography, the first aim of which should be to open the 
eyes of children to the physical features, facts and phenomena 
about them. It is largely a matter of building up the sense- 
world, storing the child mind with ideas of the surrounding 
material and its mysterious processes. All primary geography 
work is largely perceptive, appealing to the special senses where 
sight takes the lead as a channel of perception. It is essentially 
nature study ending in a larger knowledge of surrounding land- 
scapes, hills, valleys, land and water forms, plant life, animal 
life, the people, clothing, food, shelter, industries, change of 
seasons, weather, sky, storms, floods, soil and soil making, 
circulation of water and so on. 

This geographical content of the lower grades is not to be 
found in the school room. It is not a book geography. It is a 
study of nature — of the outside world. Children delight in it 
if we do not shut them off from it. The knowledge derived is 
gained thru first-hand contact with objects — thru personal ob- 
servation, rather than thru second-hand accounts of thein. 
Observation of nature, then, goes before all other forms of 
geography study and prepares the way. 



26 



The B fourth teacher, as she opens her half-year's work, needs 
to keep constantly in mind that she is to build upon the ideas 
thus gained from home geography. She must not lose sight of 
the fact that she is, first of all, to get acquainted with the actual 
experience of each individual child and then begin with that 
experience as a basis. She is formally to lead her children away 
from home geography to a consideration of the larger world 
geography. Her task is a difficult one. While the primary 
teacher interests her children in the concrete realities near home, 
the fourth grade teacher must lead them thrvi the medium of 
text books, descriptions, pictures, graphic representations, etc., 
to an imagery of the more distant real world. While the primary 
teacher directs her appeals to the powers of observation, the in- 
termediate teacher must call upon the imaginative faculty to 
help in the construction of geographical pictures. But, the 
point is, the imagination cannot construct pictures out of noth- 
ing, any more than a carpenter can construct a house without 
materials. So the imaginative geography of the intermediate 
grades is to begin with the materials which experience has gath- 
ered in the primary grades, and the intermediate teacher's suc- 
cess depends in part upon the preparation of her children — upon 
the foundation laid for her. 

The Field of Departure. 

In view of the basis laid for fourth grade geography, as 
described in the foregoing paragraph, there is a definite place 
for the teacher to begin ; there is a sure field of material she should 
work upon, a certain subject-matter that she should leave be- 
hind, and, in fact, a certain new field — an unexplored field — that 
she should approach. One fact is evident. The starting point 
is not necessarily determined by a text book. The starting 
point cannot be arbitrarily prescribed by a course of study. 
Text books and courses of study are not to be the first object 
of consideration. It is the child and his actual experience. 
There is a certain geographical content that already belongs to 
each child and there is also a certain larger and more valuable 
field of geography that he has not experienced. These facts 
should determine the point of departure, which is, in short, 
the sum-total of the pupil's experience in geographical knowl- 
edge. 



27 



The experience will vary with different classes and even with 
different individuals. The home geography of a class in the 
Green Mountains of Vermont is different from that of a class in 
Minneapolis or a class in New Orleans. Any so-called home 
geography possesses a variable content, inasmuch as no one 
locality presents all the features and phenomena of nature. 
Every child's experience is incomplete, but, so far as it goes, is 
largely made for him by his physical and social environment. 
It is this lack of completeness that calls for further educative 
process, and so far as further nature study and geography are 
concerned, they should begin just at this point of incompleteness 
— just where the pupil's experience ends. While the different 
localities of the world vary in land and water forms — vary in 
natural phenomena, in physical features and landscapes, in 
industries, productions, climate, in plant and animal life, and so 
on — yet there are, in every child's environment, many things 
appealing to his interest and inquisitiveness which go unex- 
plained. It is the study of these home things calling for ex- 
planation that should constitute the nature study and geography 
preparatory to a still larger geography of the world. 

The following outline gives a brief synopsis of the directions 
in which the experience of most children run, and each teacher 
will readily see its significance as a basis for further study. 
Primary children, as a rule, have some acquaintance with the 
following subjects or topics and it should be the business of the 
intermediate teacher to take up each individual bo}' or girl 
just where. experience ends: — 

Observational Geography. 

1. Weather changes, seasons, temperature and records. 

2. Forms of moisture, such as vapor, steam, fog, dew, rain, 
hail, frost, snow, ice, etc. 

3. Water and its properties. Local water-forms, such as 
streams, springs, rivers, lakes, falls, etc. 

4. Air and its properties. Winds, storms, etc. 

5. Local land forms and physiography; hills, islands, 
valleys, etc. ; soil, its production, kinds, properties, etc. 

6. The sky, sun, moon, constellations, stars, and related 
mvths. 



28 



Plant life, seeds, germination, cultivation, school- 
gardens, flowers, fruits, trees, vines, vegetables, grains, 
weeds, etc. 

Animals, pets, domestic animals, wild animals, in- 
sects, birds, etc. 

People, dress, food, shelter, local industries, modes 
of travel, habits and amusements, government. 



Imaginative Geography. 

Third grade geography terminates with clearer ideas 
of the Earth as a Whole than are usually attributed to 
children. These ideas have come to them in various 
ways : 

In response to their interest, they have been hearing 
all their lives of the form of the earth. 

They have been hearing of Chicago, St. Louis, New 
York, Winnipeg, China, Japan, The South, etc., and 
have formed conceptions not altogether erroneous. 

They have been seeing, from time to time, Chinese, 
Japanese, Germans, Italians, etc., and possibly have 
attempted to follow the journeys of such people to 
America. 

They may have been led to trace out the sources of 
common necessities and staple products, such as fruits, 
cotton, coal, lumber, grains, iron, sugar, salt, etc. 
They were led, possibly, from their own table or 
kitchen, to the grocery or fruit store, to the hardware 
or tin-shop, to the lumber-yard, and to the neighboring 
parts of their state, and, finally, they sought the native 
homes of tea, coffee, sugar, spices, rice, ostrich feathers, 
seal skins, ivory, silks, rugs, and so on, and were thus 
led to distant parts of the earth. 

The Reading and Language work widened their 
horizon. The Seven Little Sisters, Each and All, 
Robinson Crusoe, Bible Stories, Stories of Columbus, 
Folk Lore and Myths — all have given them ideas of 
other lands. 



29 



The Field of Approach. 

Each teacher will recognize the importance of a thoro ground- 
ing in the above kinds of nature study and geography. It is only 
a general outline of what the fourth grade teacher is to build 
upon. 

It is the larger world unit that now lies before the children — 
a great, vague unknown. For two years the teacher is to lead 
them outward from home into new lands, to see, in their imagina- 
tions, new features, and observe new phenomena. They are to 
be introduced to the various peoples of the world, their customs, 
strange characteristics, achievements, deeds, adventures, etc. 
From Home Geography to the Geography of North America, 
South America, Asia, Africa, Australia, and Europe — a tw^o years' 
movement. 

The Unifying Aim. 

As children leave the study of their immediate surroundings 
and endeavor, for the first time, to get an elementary knowledge 
of other lands, there should be some principle guiding the teacher, 
day after day, contributing to unity and definiteness There is 
so much to teach, even to children, as they approach each new 
region, that some specific aim must serve as a unifying thread. 
One thing is sure: All the details and kinds of work outlined 
above for nature study and home geography cannot be 
carried with as much detail into the study of each distant region. 
It would lead into such minuti^ as would swamp children. 
Some selection is, therefore, necessary and some guiding prin- 
ciple imperative. 

There is one theme that should be paramount in the fourth and 
fifth grade geography, — in this firstroundof the study of the con- 
tinents. It is embodied in a study of peoples, and particularly 
in the facts of interest concerning each people, their dress, foods, 
shelter, modes of travel, customs, characteristics, amusements, 
their adventures, struggles and sacrifices in history. There is 
nothing that is more interesting and profitable to fourth and 
fifth grade pupils than the study of life, especially of the pioneer 
life of their own country, of the child life of other countries and 
the noble, heroic, the peculiar and strange life of all lands. The 
greatest influence that can be brought to bear on these children. 



30 



the greatest molding and saving factor, is a Personal one. It is 
the Personal Element, then, that should furnish the working 
principle in geography for these two years. A larger acquain- 
tance with the life and environments of man will result from the 
study. 

The growth and happiness of each child are dependent upon 
the quality and variety of his experiences, and the greatest need 
of the child, at this time, relates itself to a contact with person- 
alities. The most valuable experiences, next after those which 
are his primarily, are those that become his thru contact with 
other persons' experiences. Therefore, it is the study of the 
life and experience of other people that should come out of the 
geography at this time. Even here, primitive life first suggests 
itself. Between the present-day child and the child of the race, 
there is much in common. It seems advisable, then, to present, 
along with the present life of each people, such facts and ex- 
periences in their history and development as enter into the 
make-up of their present life. 

With this in view, the geography work of the intermediate 
grades will not only add to the store of the child's knowledge, 
give him information and practical ability, but the choice of 
both material and method of presentation will be largely modi- 
fied by this prominence given to the Personal Element, — all 
determined by the desire to select that which will contribute 
to culture and the development of character. 

The Relation of Fourth Grade History to Fourth Grade Geography. 

In view of the empliasis placed upon the Personal Element in 
the foregoing paragraph, the two subjects, history and geogra- 
phy, are considered together — are kept together in the course of 
study for the fourth and fifth grades. 

While the course in geography for two years plans for a 
general survey of all the continents, that course should go hand 
in hand with the leading historic facts of interest concerning 
each people. Such geographical topics as New England, the 
Northwest, the Mississippi Valley, Boston, Quebec, such topics 
as Greece, Rome, the Nile, when presented to children for the 
first time in their lives, are as fully suggestive and significant 
from the point of view of history as geography. Why should 



31 



these interests be taught separately? Why should the elemen- 
tary historic matter be isolated from the elementary geography, 
and so frequently not presented at all? 

There should be no attempt to teach consecutive history, as 
such, in the fourth and fifth grades. Children of these grades 
are not interested in dates — in the time of events — but. in the 
events themselves, in action, in deeds, in the personal experience 
of others. There should be no attempt to present the ground- 
work of history, but a constant attempt to present such historic 
content as will appeal to interest, and lend attractiveness to the 
different localities studied. 

So as the children take up the study of the geography of each 
region of the world in the fourth and fifth grades, whether it 
be the New England States, or the Northwest, or whether it be 
Egypt, China, Greece, or England, the historic aspect is to 
receive some attention along with the discussion and develop- 
ment of present-day life. Nearly every important locality of 
each continent, whether river, coast, mountain or city, can be 
touched in an interesting way by some personal story, or bio- 
graphy, legend or myth. 



FOURTH GRADE. B CLASS. 



Preparatory Steps in B Fourth Geography. 

1. Land and Water Forms. (Time, Two Weeks.) 
There is only one reason justifying so many fourth grade text 
books in geography, even the best ones, in beginning with illus- 
trations and definitions of land and water features. No locality 
presents to children, in the Home Geography, all the typical 
features. For instance, many regions are not possessed with 
deltas and mountains or with geysers, volcanoes, oceans, divides, 
peninsulas, capes, straits, and so on. Tho absent from many 
localities, they are necessary as a preparation for later geography 
study and when properly presented, constitute a legitimate open- 
ing of B fourth geography. The adopted text devotes seventeen 
pages to this introductory study. It should be gone over hastily. 
Here, for the first time, the child will be introduced to ''book 



geograph}^" and it is taken for granted that the teacher will not 
begin with definitions. These elementary ideas bej'-ond the 
experience of the child must not be taught by definition. 
Learning words will not give true concepts of geographical forms. 
The child has no need whatever for a definition of a hill, or river, or 
ocean, but he needs to image — to sense them. By the aid of 
pictures, sand-tables, models, drawings, descriptions, etc., the 
ideas should be developed. It is not so much that a child should 
be able to define a waterfall, as to tell what he knows abotit them 
and their uses. 

Not more than two weeks should be spent on the first seven- 
teen pages of the text. The teacher should see McMurry's 
Home Geography, pages 1-70. Also, Frye's Brooks and Brook 
Basins, Payne's Geographical Nature Stories, Goff and Mayne's 
First Principles of Agriculture. 

2. Map Making and Map Reading. (Time, Two Weeks.) 
A second step for B fourth pupils as they depart from home 
geography preparatory to a consideration of the geograph}^ of 
other regions, is a work that leads to an ability to interpret maps 
and graphic representations. The ability to interpret and use 
the book properly, and especially the ability to understand a map, 
and to image beyond the map are absolutely prerequisite to a 
successful pursuit of fourth grade geography. The teacher 
should see '' Map Making", ''The World and its People Series, 
Vol. I. 

The general movement for the year is inductive — from the 
home region, always seen and studied in its reality, outward to 
distant regions ever to be unseen except in imagery. 

The ability to make and read a map is fundamental. An out- 
line follows, showing the kind of map work preparatory to 
successful fourth year geography. It is largely the work of the 
third year, now reviewed. Two weeks should be sufticient time 
for this review and preparatory study. 



(a) The Compass and Cardinal Points. 

If possible, secure a mariner's compass. One lesson 
is sufficient to review this whole subject of direction. 
(See text. Sec. 27.) 



33 



(b) Graphic Representations. (See text, Sec. 28.) 

The top of the desk. Scale, }/s of an inch for the inch. 
Time, one lesson. 

The school room. The plan of the room should be 
accurately drawn. Represent all the desk tops in true 
proportion. Scale, from 3^ inch to 1 inch for one yard. 

Call attention to the cardinal directions, varying the 
position of the map. Time, one lesson. 

Plan of the lower floor of the building. Teacher 
may help the children to adopt a scale. Represent 
rooms, halls, cloak rooms, windows, doors, etc. 

Plan of the school yard. Agree upon a proper scale 
of representation. 

The school district. Make no attempt at relief. 
Use the school building as a center, representing 
the relative positions of streets, landmarks, promi- 
nent buildings, ponds, brooks, hills. So far as prac- 
tical each child should represent his route to school. 
Emphasize direction. 

An excursion route. In the study of local indus- 
tries and places of general interest, frequent excur- 
sions are made. Children should reproduce these on 
flat paper and should locate according to north, south, 
east and west. 



A Map Study of Minneapolis. 

So far as possible, each pupil should be supplied with a small 
hand map of the city. No attempt is to be made to draw this 
map, but it is to be studied in detail. First, the general course 
of the river should be noted; the locations of the bridges over the 
river, Nicollet and Hennepin Islands, St. Anthony Falls, and 
other features and landmarks along the river. Next, attention 
should be called to the large divisions of the city, as N.-E. Minne- 
apolis ; the north, west and south districts. The teacher should 
call attention frequently to directions with the map in different 
positions. Follow Hennepin and Central Avenues to their 
termini. Note the position of the various lakes and parks, 



34 



Loring Park, Spring Park, Lake of the Isles, Calhoun Lake, 
Lake Harriet, Minnehaha Park, Riverside Park, etc. Call atten- 
tion to some of the principal streets and street-car lines. Find 
the City Hall, and follow a course from the City Hall to the 
school, or to the homes of the different pupil's. 



Map of Hennepin County and Minnesota. 

At least one large wall map of the county and state should be 
in the room. Begin with a study of the relative positions of 
Hennepin and Ramsey Counties, and of Minneapolis and St. 
Paul. Follow the course of the River thru the county. Observe 
the relative position of other towns and villages. Follow the 
principal railways and wagon roads. Develop ideas of mile, 
five miles, a hundred miles, and ideas of hour, day, week, month 
and year as units of thought. Lead pupils to make real to 
themselves different distances by translating them into units of 
time in connection with various modes of travel. No detailed 
study of the state at this time. 



The Earth as a Whole. (Time, One Week.) 

See Frye, pages 20-23. 

Frye's Child and Nature. Chap. IX. 

Tarr & McMurry. Vol. II. 

One of the most difficult tasks in the whole course of geog- 
raphy is to give children, at this time, the proper idea of the 
earth as a whole. There is no doubt that a general bird's-eye 
view of the earth should follow the above kinds of work in map- 
making and map reading, and should precede the more detailed 
regional study, but it is no easy task to present the principal 
facts of the earth as a unit to pupils of this age so as to secure 
vivid and interesting pictures, and, at the same time, avoid de- 
tail. And yet, children often have truer ideas of the earth 
than are attributed to them. They are naturally interested 
in thinking of the earth as a great ball. They have been in- 
formed of this fact many times and have tried to image it. A 
few lessons will be sufficient here, appealing to the senses and 
imagination by the use of globes of different sizes representing 



35 



the earth, sun and moon; or by a ball of yarn or an orange or 
apple pierced with a knitting needle. Long verbal niceties 
should be avoided. No attempt whatever should be made to 
show causal relations and explain the mathematical and physical 
facts. Such objective illustrations should be employed as will 
lead children to image this earth as a great ball, floating in space, 
lighted by the sun, surrounded by air, with a surface of land 
and water, with men, plants, and animals living upon it. 

The teacher should stop just for a week near the opening of 
the semester to give a general grasp of the earth-whole, in order 
that the children may not be led out constantly into a dark and 
vague unknown. Only fundamental ideas are to be presented 
and drilled upon — such as zones, continents and oceans. If 
the plan is well laid, and the presentation spirited, the essential 
features of the earth can be so presented as to give an element 
of clearness in all larger geography study. 

People of the World. (Time, Four Weeks.) 

In view of the emphasis placed upon the study of peoples in 
a paragraph above, and in view of the fact that the adopted 
text gives twenty pages to the ''People of the World," it is 
advised that about one month of the B fourth time be given to 
a general study of these pages. It should not constitute the 
body of B fourth work. It should be only a general study. 
Children are not ready for a minute study of the People of Other 
Lands before they work up a general idea of the home land thru 
a detailed view of the primitive or pioneer life, as well as of the 
present life of the United States and North America. However, 
that their anticipation may be aroused, that they may catch a 
glimpse of the interesting study that awaits them in fifth grade, 
that they may not be obliged to move out blindly, a bird's-eye 
view of the people of the world should come at this time. It 
will be quite easy for the teacher to go outside of the text, 
pages 35-53, and find an abundance of supplementary material, 
but she should guard against using such material and going 
into such details as should really belong to fifth grade work. 
Therefore, it is suggested that the above pages be used in the 
form of reading lessons at the geography time, employing class- 
time discussions, conversations, and exchange of ideas as usual 



36 



in such lessons. One page each day will complete the study in 
the allotted time, and the teacher should feel free to supplement 
with picture study and outside reading and reproduction with 
this fact in mind. Vol. II of the World and its People Series 
should be in the hands of the teacher. 



Primitive and Pioneer Life of North America. (Time, Nine Weeks.) 

The last half of the B fourth work should be given over to a 
study of the pioneer or primitive life of America, which is to 
serve as an excellent vantage-ground for the first formal advance 
into both geography and history. The gateway from home 
geography to the geography of the different sections of the 
United States is this consideration of early primitive life of each 
region. It is the pioneer epoch, first of Minneapolis and Minne- 
sota, then of the Northwest and Mississippi Valley, then of the 
other regions of America, that is to furnish our children a de- 
lightful entrance to the fields of our American history, and their 
first lessons in the geography of our country and continent. 
So far as the geography is concerned, the half year may end 
with only a general idea of the American continent, but that is 
enough; and so far as history is concerned, children will be led 
to see the simple rudiments from which our present social and 
political life have grown. Especially will this be true when 
spirited story and heroic biography furnish the medium thru 
which the early, simple, pioneer struggles are brought home to 
the hearts and sympathies of children. Geography like history 
will be, then, a movement from home outward. 

The romance of American history is in its earliest annals, 
and the life study in geography cannot be isolated from history. 
So these two studies move together and strengthen each other. 
Two years of such study should lay the foundation for all future 
history and geography as separate and distinct branches of 
study. 

In the B fourth grade, no effort should be made to teach the 
political divisions of North America, and no special emphasis 
should be placed upon sections or states as such. The move- 
ment is more general — from St. Anthony, Minneapolis, Hennepin 
County, outward to Minnesota, the Upper Mississippi region, 
the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence, and the Mississippi 



37 



Valley. Then should come the eastern Allegheny regions, the 
West, the Southwest, and the North or Eskimo regions. 
In all this movement, while the historic idea, or the personal 
element in pioneer life, offers the way of approach and the order 
of procedure, yet, each child should get a wider and wider 
acquaintance with the great regions of North America, the 
great river systems, valle^^s, the mountain regions, lakes; and, 
if the map is always before the child, even, incidentally, he will 
note the locations of states, cities, etc. 

This plan of work should get rid of the dry bones of fourth 
grade ''book-geography", and the teacher will be obliged to 
draw the materials for all this history study from other sources 
than the text. So far as the children are concerned, the teacher 
is to be the source of all their instruction and inspiration. The 
children are to be called upon for reproduction, for graphic 
representations and maps of the regions studied; and, daily, 
for a close observation of the map in the text or on the wall; 
and, at the end of the half year, for a general outline of the North 
American Continent. 

There is no fixed and definite amount of work along this line 
of pioneer study to be laid down. There are no specific require- 
ments that such and such topics shall be treated. It is the 
spirit and general plan that should be taken and not the letter 
of the outline. It is urged, however, that the general plan and 
order be followed as furnished in the following outline. Teachers 
should not feel called upon to treat every topic. 



I. A Study of the American Indian. 

''Children of the Indian Tribe." The Indian baby, the 
papoose. The cradle. The Indian boy with his bow, 
arrow, canoe, horse. The Indian girl, her play and work. 
The Indian shoe, costumes, wigwam and camp. Indian 
men. Indian women. The hunt. The war dance. In- 
dian stories. 

Make much use of drawings and pictures in this study of 
the Indians. The children may read Bass's Stories of Pio- 
neer Life. Also Longfellow's Hiawatha, with special refer- 
ence to the cantos on Childhood, the Famine, and the Com- 



38 



ing of the White Man. A study of Minnehaha Falls along 
with their related history and legends. 

The teacher will find excellent references in the following 
books : 

Hart's Colonial Children. 

Mary Hall Husted's Stories of Indian Children. 

Pratt's Far East and Far West Red Children. 

Pratt's Legends of the Red Children. 

Frederick Starr's American Indians. 

Miss Judd's Wigwam Stories. 

Hazard and Button's Indians and Pioneers. 

Johonnot's Stories of Heroic Deeds. 

Zitkala-Sa's Old Indian Legends. 

2. Stories of Minnesota. 

The struggles of the pioneer and yeoman of early Minne- 
sota, tho an inland state, carved out of the Northwest 
territories, are just as interesting as those of the states along 
the coast. A few stories showing the battles of the early 
settlers of the Northwest with soil and savage, should prove 
as fitting, for western boys and girls, as the story of the 
Pilgrims of Massachussetts or the Cavaliers of Virginia. 

See such books as Foster's Stories of Minnesota for Indian 
stories. Father Hennepin, Carver, Early Days at Fort 
Snelling, the first steamboat, the Sioux and their ways, etc. 

3. The Upper Mississippi. 

Some acquaintance with this great region can be inter- 
estingly worked up thru the study of early life and ad- 
venture. 

See McMurry's Pioneers of the Mississippi Valley for 
stories of Hennepin's Voyages on the Upper Mississippi. 
Chap. IV; Joliet and Marquette, Chap. I; The Sioux Mas- 
sacre in Minnesota, Chap. XI. Also Bass's Stories of Pioneer 
Life, for Marquette, pages 21-28. Baldwin's Discovery of 
the Northwest, for the Upper Mississippi, pages 204-223. 
Teachers may feel free to use a part or all of these stories 
or to supplement others pertaining to this region. 



39 



The Great Lakes and the Mississippi Valley. 

La Salle on the Upper Lakes, McMurry's Pioneers of the 
Mississippi Valley, Chap. IL La Salle, on the Lower Mis- 
sissippi, Chap. in. Also Gordy's American Leaders and 
Heroes, Chap. IX. De Soto's Discovery of the Mississippi, 
Chap. XII. Also Gordy, Chap. II. Daniel Boone, 
''Pioneers of Mississippi Valley", Chap. V. Also Gordy, 
Chap. XVIII. Abraham Lincoln — Pioneer Stories, Chap. 
X. See ''The Grandfather's Story", Bass, Chap. XIII. 
For general reference, Shaw's Discoverers and Explorers. 



5. The Eastern Regions. 

Story of the Pilgrims and Miles Standish. Gordy's Amer- 
ican Leaders and Heroes, Chap. VI. Henry Hudson, 
''Pioneers on Land and Sea", Chap. II. John Smith, Chap. 
IV. Walter Raleigh, Chap. III. Ponce de Leon, Chap. X. 

6. The Great Plains, Rocky Mountains, and the West. 

See McMurry's ''Pioneers of the West". Lewis and 
Clark up the Mississippi River and Across the Mountains to 
Oregon, Chap. I. Fremont's Trips to Salt Lake and Cali- 
fornia, Chaps. II, III. Drake's Voyage and Visit to Cali- 
fornia, Chap. VII. Discovery of Gold in California in '49, 
Chap. IV. 

7. The Southwest. 

The home of the Cliff Dwellers, the Pueblos and the 
Aztecs. Coronado's trip to the Southwest, McMurry's 
Pioneers of the West, Chap. VIII. Powell's Journeys thru 
the Grand Canon, Chap. V. Cortez in Mexico, ''Pioneers 
on Land and Sea", Chap. IX. 

8. The Frozen North and the Eskimo. 

See ''Hans, the Eskimo", by Sandlin. The Frozen 
North, by Edith Horton, etc. Other Eskimo Stories. 



40 



FOURTH GRADE. A CLASS. 



The teacher of this grade should study carefully the intro- 
ductory paragraphs in the B fourth outline, entitled, ''Basis 
for Fourth Grade Geography", ''The Unifying Aim", ''The 
Relation of History to Geography", etc. She should also acquaint 
herself, as far as possible, with the nature and extent of the B 
fourth work. The following outline is presented with the hope 
of facilitating, unifying and broadening the A fourth work. 



Scope of the A Fourth Work. 

While the spirit of the B fourth work should find its way into 
A fourth geography, the order of procedure, general plan and 
scope of the work of the two semesters are entirely different. 
The B fourth's general A'iew of the different regions of North 
America and of the primitive life of the continent, is to be 
followed now by a somewhat detailed study of the sections of 
the United States and by a wider acquaintance with both the 
pioneer and the present life of each section. The guiding prin- 
ciple is to be the same, i. e. — the study of life; and this study will 
take on, possibly, less of the primitive and pioneer aspect and 
more of the present-day view. To the same extent, then, will 
the historic phase subordinate itself to the geographic element. 
Pupils and teachers will, no doubt, all feel that they are getting 
hold of a more tangible geography of the United States, and 3"et 
the inquiry into the life-side of the people is to be so pressed 
and emphasized that the historic interests must still receive 
prominent consideration. 

A half year, then, is to be devoted to a stud}" of the United 
States; and the adopted text, Frye's Elements of Geography, 
will come more into use than in the previous half 3^ear. (See 
Sees. 72-92 and 131-139.) 



41 



I. Introductory Study. 

While the steps in the teaching process should be determined 
largely by the guiding principle, — the inquiry into life, yet this 
order is somewhat modified here by the nature and distribu- 
tion of the matter in the adopted text. The following introduc- 
tory study will probably best meet the conditions of the book, 
and still not defeat the end to be realized. 



1. General View of North America. (See text, Sees. 72-73.) 

As already provided for, the B fourth geography should 
end with a general idea of North America. The A fourth 
should open with another glance at the continent as a whole. 
This should not be a detailed study. Two weeks should be 
sufficient to impress the ideas of location, size, shape, 
general surface features, drainage systems, etc. The sand- 
map m.ay be built up, showing the relief; and before the con- 
tinent is left each child should be led to sketch, off-hand, on 
paper and on the board, the general outline of the continent, 
the general directions of the coast line, the great peninsulas 
and arms of the seas, the important harbors and bays. 
They should then mark off the larger political divisions, the 
river systems, mountain systems, etc. 

2. General Study of the United States. 

The United States may be treated first as a unit and not 
by sections or individual states. Not more than one month 
should be devoted to this general study, which should 
follow quite closely the text, Sees. 74-91, pages 58-79. No 
special history work should accompany these pages. The 
topics that should receive emphasis in this month's work 
are as follows : 



(a) Position and Size of the United States. 

Relative to North America and to the oceans and 
other continents. Use globe and wall maps. Approxi- 
mate length and breadth of the United States. From 



42 



the beginning, children should locate Minnesota and 
Minneapolis. A single lesson should be sufficient for 
this topic. 

(b) Relief and Drainage. 

See pages 58-67 for reading lessons on such topics 
as Rocky Mountain Highland, Great Central Plain, 
Great Lakes, Appalachian Highland, and Atlantic 
Slope. The Relief Map, pages 60-61, should be studied 
and then built up in sand or clay, and preferably with 
putty or salt and flour. 

(c) Belts of the United States. 

This subject is to open up the largest body of the 
work that is to come under the general study of the 
United States. One month is set aside for this 
''general study", and as much as three weeks of it 
should be devoted to this study of industrial and pro- 
duct belts, so fully treated by the adopted text. (See 
pages 58-79.) 

(a) Heat and Rain, Sec. 81. 

(b) Cotton, Sec. 82. 

(c) Indian Corn, Sec. 83. 

(d) Wheat, Sec. 84. 

(e) Forests, Sec. 85. 

(f) Cattle and Sheep, Sec. 86. 

(g) Coal, Sec. 87. 
(h) Iron, Sec. 88. 

(i) Gold and Silver, Sec. 89. 
(j) Other Products, Sec. 90. 

The teacher should draw from: 
Chamberlain's How We Are Clothed. 
Chamberlain's How We Are Fed. 
Chase and Clow's Stories of Industry. 
Lane's Industries of Today. 
Lane's Triumphs of Science. 

(d) General Historic Statement. 

Merely a lesson or two. (See Sees. 79-80, pages 
68-69.) 



43 



II. Sectional Study of the United States. 

The larger part of the semester is to be devoted to 
this study. The danger that arises is that it may be 
' 'too bookish". The text gives but twenty-five pages, 
Sees. 131-139, to this three month's study. No 
section of states should be approached from the 
standpoint of the map and drill, but rather thru some 
geographical or historic interest. Isolated sentences 
as, ' ' Bangor marks the place where lumber, sawed on 
the banks of the Penobscot river, can be placed on ves- 
sels at the head of the tide- water", or ''Richmond is 
at the head of the tide- water on James river", make 
up a large part of the twenty-five pages in the book 
and have absolutely no value as abstracted, lonely 
remarks. When there is nothing more of life, and 
history, and interest associated with Bangor and Rich- 
mond, etc., than that, all should be omitted. 

Apportionment of Time. 

The following apportionment of time is suggested 
for the detailed study of each section: 
New England, three weeks. 
Middle Atlantic States, three weeks. 
Southern States, two weeks. 
Central States, east and west, three weeks. 
Minnesota, one week. 
Western States, two weeks. 

Aspects in the Teaching Process. 

There are at least three aspects in the development of the 
geography of the different sections of the United States. A 
detailed study of the various regions as adapted to the inter- 
mediate grades should give emphasis to, 

(a) The related historic facts in each section. 

(b) The selection of a few typical topics in each region for 
full development and discussion. 

(c) Organization of the matter presented, and drill upon 
the leading facts. 



44 



History Topics in a Study of the States. 

In the B fourth work the history topics treated were somewhat 
general. They were related to regions. In the A fourth study 
of each section of the United States the facts of interest in history 
become more local in their application. In other words, such 
topics were selected in the B fourth that followed travel, struggle, 
exploration and discovery over large districts. In the A fourth 
shorter stories, and many times as many, should be selected to 
accompany the geography study of each section. As the children 
study the New England states, for example, short accounts may 
be given, from day to day, of interesting historic events or 
experiences identified with New England life. Not such broad 
topics now as ' 'The Pilgrims", or as ' ' Champlainin New France", 
as treated by McMurry's Pioneer Stories, but rather a great 
number and variety of such subjects as Plymouth Rock, the 
Landing, the Return of the Mayflower, the First Winter, the 
First Thanksgiving, Pilgrim Christmas, the Army of Miles 
Standish, Short Indian Stories, Samoset, Massasoit, Roger 
Williams, King Philip, Paul Revere, the North Church, Lexing- 
ton, Concord, ''Cradle of Liberty", Bunker Hill, Boston Tea 
Party, etc. 

Or, if the study be of the Middle Atlantic states, such subjects 
as the following suggest themselves : The Dutch Traders, 
Amsterdam, Peter Stuyvesant, Jamestown, Pocahontas, William 
Penn and Indians, City of ''Brotherly Love", Benjamin Frank- 
lin, Mount Vernon, George Washington, The First Flag, Brad- 
dock's Defeat, the Stamp Act, Liberty Bell, the Declaration of 
Independence, Ethan Allen, Major Andre, Valley Forge, Cross- 
ing the Delaware, Francis Marion, the ''Swamp Fox", Paul 
Jones, Yorktown, the first steamboat, first railway, first tele- 
graph line, first cable, Gettysburg, Grant and Lee at Appomat- 
tox, etc. 

So on, with the study of every other section, short history 
stories are supplementary. They are secondary in the teaching 
process. The geography lessons will center around the study of 
typical topics, which should be illumined and intensified by 
stories from history. Teachers may draw these materials from 
various sources. Any elementary United States history will 
be helpful. The following books are a few of the great number 



45 



adapted for aid to this kind of work: Eggleston's Stories of 
American Life and Adventure should be in the hands of the 
children. For teacher's reference see such books as McMurry's 
Pioneer Stories. Gordy's Leaders and Heroes. Short Stories 
from American History, by Blaisdell and Ball. On Plymouth 
Rock, by Samuel Adams Drake. American Indians, by Freder- 
ick Starr. Button's New Century Historical Series. Burton's 
Stories of Indians of New England. Dodge's Stories of American 
History. Hero Stories from American Life, by Blaisdell and 
Ball. Pratt's American Stories for American Children, 5 vol. 
Carroll's Around the World, Book III. Carpenters' North 
America. The Making of the Great West, by Drake. Hart's 
Source Readers. 

Type Studies. 

The body of the A fourth geography work should be 
organized around large typical topics. Here is the only way 
to get any rich content into A fourth geography. Boston, for 
example, is to be made a subject for elaborate treatment. The 
systematic teacher will even incorporate the history work, as 
suggested in the foregoing paragraph, into these large geo- 
graphical topics. By no means should teachers feel obliged to 
teach a certain amount of history and then follow with the 
geography proper. The history is to insert itself from day to 
day. 

McMurry's ''Type Studies from United States Geography", 
should be in the hands of each A fourth teacher. The book 
develops twenty-five topics. In treating the Hudson River, 
for instance, the following sub-topics are all presented by the 
author, in their proper relation: location, size, scenery, source 
in the Adirondacks, mouth and harbor. New York City, early 
history along the Hudson, commerce, the River's relation to 
literature, etc. 

The A fourth geography may, in fact, be so organized 
around a few prominent centers, as to relate all minor topics, 
as the history, climate, products, occupations and character- 
istics of the people, in any particular section. Thus, Boston 
may be the largest topic of the New England states, but it 
includes descriptions of New England winters, summers, and 
people. It leads into discussions of New England industries, 



46 



such as cod fisheries, ship building, manufacturing, mining, 
etc. All the history stories of importance are closely as- 
sociated with Boston; all New England commercial routes lead 
to that port; it is the center of education, literature, and of 
travel. Its great buildings and public views are the pride of 
New England. It will not be a waste of time to give such a 
subject full development. So in the other sections, there are 
the Hudson and New York, Philadelphia, New Orleans, 
Louisville, Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Denver and San 
Francisco. 

For an}^ present-day view of the L^nited States such books 
should be consulted as Carpenter's, or the ''World and its 
People", series; King's Picturesque Geographical Readers, and 
so on. The teacher should not fail to take the suggestions of 
McMurry's Type Studies in this work. 

Map Study and Drill. 

The third aspect mentioned above in A fourth teaching is 
that of organization and drill. The maps should be constantly 
before the children in all their study. Location should be al- 
ways leaving its impress. The closing lessons on each section 
should be given to off-hand map drawing, and a drill on im- 
portant facts. Only a few world-known cities, rivers, moun- 
tains, lakes, etc., should be outlined, spelled, pronounced, 
memorized and drilled upon. There are hundreds of facts 
shown on the maps of the elementary text that children of this 
grade should not be required to learn. The teacher should use 
careful judgment in avoiding unimportant detail. 



47 



FIFTH GRADE. B CLASS. 

Three factors are absolutely essential to the successful teach- 
ing of B fifth geography : First, a conscious purpose in the mind 
of each teacher; second, the choice of the proper subject-matter; 
third, an effective method of presentation. 

The Aim. 

There should be a single aim in the mind of every teacher. 
She should hold in view a definite purpose which should guide her 
day after day. She should set up a certain thing to be realized 
in geography for her boys and girls, and this sole end should 
direct her in the choice of all her materials and inspire her in 
her methods of presenting these materials. 

The aim in B fifth geography should be to give children an 
elementary knowledge of man as he is found environed to-day 
in South America, Asia, Africa, and Australia. It should be 
the one aim of each teacher working up fifth grade geography to 
give her children for the first time an introduction to the pre- 
sent home of the various peoples on each of the continents 
named. The central thought in all this work should be that of 
man as he is found today, especially the leading peoples with 
all their characteristic customs, habits and achievements. The 
aim should be to make fifth grade geography as interesting as 
possible, free from bookish treatment and rich in attractive 
description by presenting world-known facts concerning the 
peoples of other lands. Or, again, the aim should be to give 
pupils an insight into the modes of life on the different continents, 
into the habits of the people, — an insight into the customs, 
traditions, history, occupation, productions, etc. In other 
words, the chief aim of fifth grade geography should be to lead 
children away from America and to familiarize them with the 
vital geography of other lands, and at the same time, to set 
forth in an elementary way the relations between human 
activities and the geographic environments. 



48 



The above paragraph states in a variety of forms the teacher's 
point of view. The statements, finally, all have the same 
significance and each teacher should agree upon some one such 
statement, as the principle which will guide her week in and 
week out. 

The Subject-matter. 

With the above end in view the teacher should next select her 
subject-matter — her appropriate materials. At first thought 
she may feel the overwhelming truth that her subject-matter is 
the sum-total of all the facts about each particular people. 
Her subject-matter is man and his physical environment. She 
is to present to her children in an elementary way the various 
peoples of the earth; but as she goes about her work, as she 
approaches each particular continent, she finds so much of 
interest, she finds such a multiplicity of facts and such an 
abundance of material, that her problem becomes one of choice 
and elimination. She must select some materials, ignore others. 
She must make some matter first, subordinate other. One 
thing sure, she must realize that maps, map drawing, globes 
and globe study, text books, and supplementary reading are 
mere aids — accessories in getting the real subject-matter before 
children. The course of study in reality is not on paper, nor 
is the actual content to be found in texts, but in the outside 
world of fact and interest, in the study of life itself. No teacher 
should feel limited to a course of study on paper, and to the mas- 
tery of all that is prescribed. Any curriculum should be used 
only for its suggestions of fields of material into which to lead 
children to reconstruct and build up experience. 

A course of study as indicated above and outlined below can 
do nothing more than suggest the materials that should receive 
emphasis in B fifth geography. In taking up the study of the 
fields proposed there are, at least, three steps in the order of 
procedure that should be more or less conscious to the teacher 
and possibly to the children as well. 

(1) The General View. 

In the approach to any particular region the general 
ideas of location, climate and physical features are to 
be first gained by the children. While the teacher 



49 



must keep in mind that the Personal idea and not the 
Causal one is to rule in fourth and fifth grade geogra- 
phy, yet she must hold up to the observation of her 
children in an elementary way some of the physical 
and mathematical facts of the region studied. In the 
first round of the study of the continents, as in the 
Home Geography of the third year, the teacher is 
still to appeal somewhat to the perceptive powers, 
along with the imaginative and not too strongly to the 
rational. She is ever leading her children to concrete 
illustrations of the fact that physiography underlies 
all other facts of interest; that the earth, in its different 
localities, is adapted to man's habitation, and that 
physical and climatic conditions everywhere modify 
man's activities in his effort to supply his three great 
needs — food, shelter and clothing. 



(2) Organization of Topics. 

In the study of each continent or region, the teacher 
must organize all her study around central topics as 
units. She must select a few ''type studies" — a few 
world-known centers, or localities, or facts about which 
to organize all her instruction. This is the only way to 
give unity to every advance and at the same time 
secure a rich descriptive content to the whole study of 
geography. For example, in the study of South 
America, as planned below, it is suggested that the 
study be centralized about each of the five great 
physical divisions, the Andes, the Brazilian Highlands, 
the Selvas, Llanos and Pampas. These are to be 
used as units of study rather than the different 
political divisions. In Asia or in Europe, certain 
nationalities are taken as units, as China, Japan, and 
India, or as Greece, France, England, Holland, Russia, 
etc. The unifying thread in all this study, however, 
whether the unit of study be a great physical division, 
a great region, or a nationality, is the Personal Element 
— the study of people as such, whether of the Pampas 



50 



of South America, of China, of the region of the Nile, 
or of South Africa. 
(3) Related History. 

The teacher should take every opportunity to fur- 
nish her pupils with interesting historical or bio- 
graphical matter, typical in character, giving light to 
the personal aspect of the study, and further emphasis 
to the so-called geography proper. She should always 
feel free to select such anecdotes, incidents, stories, 
legends, events in history, in fact, such materials con- 
taining the personal element and ideal element as will 
impel the attention and interest of children in the 
study of each continent, and as will make both the 
''earth-picturing and man-picturing" of geography 
and history more vividly related and more real. Here 
is where all history that is to meet the needs of the 
fifth grade pupils is to be kept inseparable from geog- 
raphy. 



Scope of the Continents in Detail. 

Frye's Elements of Geography. 

South America. (Time, Five Weeks.) Sees. 92-98, 

143-144. 
Asia. (Time, Nine Weeks.) Sees. 98-105 and 

144-145. 
Africa and Australia. (Time, Four Weeks.) Sees. 

111-122 and 145. 



51 



OUTLINE OF THE CONTINENTS IN DETAIL. 

South America. 

In the fourth grade the children were given a general idea of 
the world, with a somewhat full treatment of North America 
and a more detailed survey of the United States. 

The fifth grade teacher is now to start with her children once 
more on their own hemisphere and she should see, first of all, 
that these children are able to image the earth as a great ball, 
floating in space, lighted by the sun, surrounded by air, with a 
surface of land and water, with men, plants and animals living 
upon it. This is the picture seldom sensed, even by adults, 
because they have been held too close to maps and texts in 
their study. The following suggestions are offered for the 
teaching of South America, the simplest and most typical of all 
the continents. They are but suggestions and no teacher 
should feel bound to carry out every detail of the outline. 

1. The Earth as a Unit. 

Review briefly the earth as a whole, the globe, the two hemi- 
spheres, the continents and oceans. If possible, lead children to 
image the western hemisphere — not the page in the book, but 
the two vast continents. Explain the use of meridians and 
parallels, and the custom of reckoning from the Greenwich 
meridian, all as a matter of convenience. 

2. The Position of South America. 

(a) With reference to the globe. In order to impress the 
relative position of South America with other conti- 
nents, review briefly the Columbus voyages, and Bal- 
boa and his discovery of the Pacihc. Teach in detail, 
develop, and reproduce the leading incidents of in- 
terest in the voyages of Magellan and Drake. See Mc- 
Murry's Pioneers on Land and Sea, Chapters 7 and 8, 



52 



and Pioneers of the Rocky Mountains and the West, 
Chapter 7. Read, or better still, talk to the children 
from Carpenter's South America, Chapter XX, ''In 
and about the Straits of Magellan". Review the 
story of the "Oregon". No teacher .should read or 
reproduce whole chapters from Carpenter to B fifth 
pupils. Single paragraphs and interesting portions 
should be selected and properly related to the subject 
in hand. Even where the class is supplied with Car- 
penter's for supplementary reading, the books should 
be used at preparation period for geography when the 
children work up certain topics in response to pre- 
vious assignments. 

Maps and globes should be before the children at 
every step in these stories. They are necessary, not 
only to a proper understanding of the stories, but to 
illuminate the geography. The adventurous and 
heroic in history are presented here, not so much that 
children may enter upon the field of real history, but 
with a view of securing for them stronger impressions 
and a more valuable geographical content. 



(b) Position with reference to North America and the 
hemisphere. Along with the proper use of the globe, 
a feAv general comparisons of latitude and longitude 
should be learned at this time. For instance: Is 
South America directly south of North America? 
Which is the farther west, Chicago or Valparaiso (S.A.) ? 
What city in the United States is directly north of any 
city in South America? 



(c) Position with reference to the equator. Is the greater 
part of South America north or south of the equator? 
To what southern latitude does the continent extend? 
Does it reach farther into the antarctic regions than 
Africa does? Follow the equator around the globe 
and draw conclusions. 



53 



3. Size and Extent 

Compare with other continents. 

Continents memorized in order of size. 

Use of the scale in estimating the length of journeys 

by land and sea. 

4. Outline. 

Picture mentally, away from the map, the position 
and outline of the continent. Trace the outline in the 
air with the whole arm movement. Enlarge the out- 
line off-hand and rapidly on the board. Sketch more 
carefully on paper. Show the capes, surrounding 
waters, the straits, and islands. Show in proper re- 
lation the mouth of the Amazon and that of the Plata, 
f ' Note the relative position of Pt. Parina and St. Rociue. 

Show Juan Fernandez. (Robinson Crusoe. Repro- 
duce this story once more.) 



5. Relief. 



P'ifth grade pupils should be led to ' 'feel" the physical 
features of the continent. In order that they may 
receive clear and lasting impressions of the different 
surface features, they should build them up individu- 
ally in relief. Sand and clay modeling should now be 
displaced by more permanent relief maps made by 
each child. These may be made of putty, papier- 
mache, or of salt and flour, and should be put upon 
such a base as to give permanence to the map. 

The outline for a relief map should never be drawn 
ofif-hand. There is more place for ofT-hand map draw- 
ing in geography work than any other kind, but when 
the child is going after the relief, he should repre- 
sent accurately the outline of the continent and the 
exact locations of the prominent physical features. 
This can be done by tracing, by stencil, by models of 
the continent cut out of heavy cardboard, or by the 
old method of squares and angles. If desired, the relief 
map may be placed upon paper, but this should be 
mounted on a base of wood, or trunk board. The 
political divisions should not be represented on relief 



54 



maps, and no water colors should be used, unless to 
wash a blue background for the surrounding seas and 
oceans. 

6. The Great Physical Divisions of South America. The 
Peoples. 
When the relief is finished, or, possibly, while it is being 
finished, the physical divisions in their relation to the people 
and all the facts of interest concerning the people should be 
studied in detail. 

(a) The First Great Physical Division. 

The backbone of the continent — the Andes. Com- 
pared to North America. The length. The highest 
points. 

Cutting thru the ''neck". The Isthmian Canal. A 
study of Panama. See Carpenter, Chap. II and III. 

A study of Lima. See Carpenter, Chap. VII. 
Ascent of the Andes. See Carpenter, "Up the 
Andes", Chap. VII. 

''On the Roof of South America", Chap. IX. 

As you read of Aconcagua, p. 73, see that the relief 
map represents it. 

References made in the above reading to Pizarro. 
Here some interesting history may be worked up. 
Study the coming of the gold-seeking Spaniards. 
Study in detail the Andes Indians. 

Lake Titicaca. See that the relief map represents 
the lake. Take the interesting facts from Carpenter, 
Chap. X, ' ' Steamboating Above the Clouds"; Chap. 
XII, "Mineral Wealth of the Andes." 

Make a study of LaPaz, Carpenter, Chap. VI; Val- 
paraiso, Chap. XIV; and Santiago, Chap. XVI. 

(b) The Second Great Physical Division. 
The Highlands of Brazil. 

Compared to the Appalachians as to directions, height, 
etc. Select the most interesting facts from Carpenter, 
Chap. XXXI, ' ' In Brazil— The Wilds of Matto Grosso" ; 
Chap. XXXII. 

Make a detailed study of Rio Janeiro and Bahia, 
Chap. XXXIV and XXXV. 



55 



(c) A Third Great Physical Division. 

The Amazon. The Selvas. Note on the rehef map 
the sources of the Amazon, its course, and the great 
rivers that feed it thru the greatest river valley of the 
. world. See Carpenter, Chap. XXXVIII, "The Valley 
of the Amazon, or The King of Rivers"; Chap. XLI, 
''A Trip on the Amazon". 

A study of Para and The Land of Rubber, Chap. 
XXXIX and XL. 

(d) A Fourth Physical Division. 

The Orinoco. The Llanos. Note the physical fea- 
tures which bring together the head waters of the 
Orinoco with some of the tributaries of the Amazon. 
A study of Caracas, Chap. XLIII, after having 
presented the most interesting facts of Chap. XLII, 
''On the Orinoco and the Llanos". 

(e) A Fifth Physical Division. 

The Plata System. The basin drained. Carpenter, 
Chap. XXXVII. 

The Pampas. Note the interesting portions of Chap. 
XXIII, "Life on the Pampas"; Chap. XXIV, "In 
the Great Fruit and Bread Lands of South America". 
Study in detail Buenos Aires and Montevideo. 

7. Review and Drill. 

Before leaving the continent, each teacher should stop de- 
velopment work, should bring an end to attractive description, 
to the composition work and reproduction, and should spend two, 
three, or more days in drill on locations and important facts, 
so that children may organize their material and retain it. The 
value of descriptive geography for the fifth grade is inestimable, 
but there are certain topics, certain well known practical facts, 
for which we should hold the children responsible in the end 
by a system of drills. The following are among these topics: 

The General Outline Features of the Continent. 

The Drainage Systems. 

The Chief Climatic Districts. 

The Leading Occupations. 

The Chief products. 

The growing, gathering, and shipping of such products. 



56 



The People. Indians, Spaniards, Portuguese, and half 
breeds. Numerous facts both of current and historic 
interest about the people. 

The Political Divisions. At the close of the study the politi- 
cal divisions should be thoroly memorized. No special 
drill should be given upon boundaries. The countries 
should be remembered in order on the Pacific and in 
order on the Atlantic. 

The Cities. Only the prominent cities — scarcely more tKan 
the capital and metropolis of each division. 



Asia. 

Scope of the Work. 

General Introduction One week. 

China and Korea .Two weeks. 

Japan Two weeks. 

Philippines and Farther India One week. 

India One week. 

Persia One week. 

Holy Land and Turkey One week. 

References. 

Frye. Page 86-91 and 155-159. 

Carpenter's ''Asia". 

Jane Andrews' ' 'Ten Boys". Tarr and McMurry's ''Asia' 

The World and Its People Series. 

Endicott's Stories of the Bible. 

Guerber's Stories of the Chosen People. 

Two Girls in China. (Eclectic School Readers.) 

Etc. Etc., 



General Introductory Study. 

This is the first time in the whole school course that 
children are led to a definite study of the Eastern 
Hemisphere. The approach to this Old World should 
be in a broad and general way. The earth as a whole 



57 



should be noted once more, the great globe, the two 
hemispheres, the large land and water bodies. 
The great land divisions of the Eastern Hemisphere. 
The oceans and seas about these land divisions. The 
Mediterranean and its ''Circle of Lands". The home 
of Columbus; his purpose. The work of Marco Polo. 
The Isthmvis of Suez. The boundary line between 
Europe and Asia. (See the Relief Map, text, page 86.) 

(a) Position. 

Location of Asia with reference to the equator. 
With reference to South America and United States, 
as to latitude. With reference to London and W^ash- 
ington as to longitude. 

Direction of Asia from the. United States. Trace a 
route from Minneapolis to Asia by way of San Fran- 
cisco. What railroads? What steamship lines? 
Length of journey? Cost of transportation? Desti- 
nation? Etc. See Carpenter, ''Voyage to Japan", 
pages 11-14. Trace route similarly by way of New 
York. 

(b) Size and Extent. 

Compared with other continents. Continents named 
in order of size. Use of the scale in estimating length 
of journeys. Length of the Siberian Railway. A 
general statement of the peoples to be studied. Chi- 
nese, Japanese, Hindoos, Persians, etc., with approxi- 
mate distances from each other. 

(c) Outline and Relief. 

Study the outline from the wall-map, and from the 
relief map, page 86. See that children recognize the 
Ural Ridge and the Caspian and Black Seas as forming 
part of the boundary. Trace the outline in the air. 
Outline off-hand on paper and on the board with 
book open. Represent the peninsulas, Kamchatka, 
Korea, Malay, India, Arabia and Turkey. General 
shape of the continent compared with that of others. 
The relief of the continent should be built up ac- 
cording to the directions given for South America' 



58 



Countries of Greatest Interest. 

(1) China. 

The chief interest to the children here should be the 
Chinese as a people. 

See Carpenter for such subjects as the following: 
The Chinese Lands, number of people, physical fea- 
tures, dress, customs, products, occupations, modes of 
travel, government, etc. ''A Trip to Peking", Chap. 
XII. "The Great Capital of China", Chap. XIII. 
''Government and Education", Chap. XIV. ''The 
Great Wall", Chap. XV. ''Boats and Boat People", 
Chap. XVI. "Farm and Farming", Chap. XVII. 
Curious Customs", Chap. XVIII. ''Life in Asia", 
World and its People Series, etc., etc. 

Korea. ''The Hermit Nation", Carpenter, Chap. 
IX. ''Among the Koreans," Chap. X. 

See also. Van Bergen's Story of China, Krout's Two 
Girls in China, and the Little Journey Series. 

(2) The Japanese. 

Carpenter: '' The Island Empire", Chap. II. ''Tokio", 
Chap. III. '' Home Life", Chap. IV. ''The Emperor 
and his Palaces", Chap. V. ''Japanese Children", 
Chap. VI. ''Farms and Farmers", Chap. VII. 
''Commercial and Industrial Japan", Chap. VIII. 
See "Japan" in the Little Journey Series. Also, Van 
Bergen's Story of Japan, and Lane's ''Towards the 
Rising Sun". 

(3) Philippines and Farther India. 

''The Story of the Philippines", by Adelaide Knapp, 
in the World and Its People Series. ' ' Siam and the 
Siamese", Carpenter, Chap. XIX. The King of Siam. 
The Royal Elephants. Singapore. The Malays. The 
Burmese, etc. Chaps. XX, XXI, XXII, and'xXIV. 

(4) India. 

Jane Andrews' ' 'Ten Boys". The story of Kablu, in a 
lesson or two. General View, Carpenter, Chap. XXIV. 



59 



See Chapters XXV to XXX for such subjects as 
Farms and Farmers, Stores and Trades, Wild Animals, 
the Holy City, Above the Clouds in the Heart of the 
Himalayas, etc., etc. 

(5) Persia. 

Jane Andrews' "Ten Boys", Story of Darius. Car- 
penter, Chap. XXXII; Persia and the Persians. 

(6) The Lands of the Bible. 

Carpenter. Palestine and its People, Chap. XXXIV. 
''Life in Asia", AVorld and its People Series, Chap. 
XXVI. Endicott's Stories of the Bible. Guerber's 
Chosen People. Carpenter's ''Travels Among the 
Turks", Chap. XXXV. 



Africa and Australia. (Time, Four Weeks.) 

References : 

Carpenter's i^frica. 

Frye's Elementary Geography. 

Tarr & McMurry's Africa and Australia, Part Five. 

Carpenter's Australia and the Islands of the Sea. 

Kellogg's Bible Stories. 

Lyde's Geography of Africa. 

Badlam's Views in Africa. 

Travels of Livingstone and Stanley. 

(1) Location, size, extent, outline and surface developed 
as suggested fpr the stud}'' of South America and Asia. 
The surface features are comparatively of little im- 
portance for the consideration of the fifth grade. Not 
more than four physical divisions should be studied. 
The Nile Valley, The Sahara, the Niger-Congo Region, 
South Africa and the Zambezi-Orange Region. 

In the study of the outline of the continent, teach 
Cape Good Hope and the significance of the name. 
Cape Verde. Why so named? St. Helena. Why? 
Red Sea. Why so named? Suez Canal. Straits of 
Gibraltar. Canary Islands, etc. 



60 



(2) Egypt and the Nile Valley. 

The old civilization. Why along the Nile? The 
Egyptian Priests. The religion. The mummies. The 
pyramids. The sphinxes, temples, citadels. Picture 
study and prominent views. Alexandria and Cairo as 
cities and centers. The story of Joseph. The story 
of Moses. See Carpenter's Africa. Chap. 12-16. 

(3) The Sahara. 

Size and extent of the desert. The undulating chains 
of hills and table-lands of the desert. The sand 
storms. The Simoon. The Oasis. "Blind Streams", 
Mirage. Caravan trains. Nomads. The lion, gazelle, 
antelope, ostrich, etc. See Chap. II-III, ''Views in 
Africa", by Badlam. See Carpenter's Africa. Chap. 
8-10. 

(4) The Soudan-Congo Region. 

' ' The Dark Continent", the original home of the Amer- 
ican Negro. Livingstone's and Stanley's explorations. 
See Marden's Stories from Life. See Badlam's 
"Views in Africa", Chap. VIII, XIV, XV, XVI, and 
XVII, for such subjects as the Niger, Congo, people 
and views of the Congo Region. 

(5) South and Southeastern Africa. 

The Zambeze Region, Badlam, Chap. IX-XI. 
' 'Victoria Falls", Chap. X.' ' Lake Region", Chap. XIX. 
"Glimpses of South Africa", Chap. XXXII. 
"Natives of South Africa", Chap. XXXIII. As time 
will permit, see chapters on ' 'The Diamond Fields", 
''Hottentot Customs", ''Views of the Boers", etc. 
See Carpenter's Africa. Chap. 42-48. 

(6) Australia. 

A few lessons should be given to a consideration of the 
people of Australia and New Zealand. It sjiould be 
almost exclusively descriptive geography. 



61 



Such isolated sentences as ''Victoria and New South 
Wales are the leading colonies of Australia", are 
valueless and should not be learned. Whatever is 
taught about Victoria, New South Wales, New Zea- 
land, Melbourne, or Sidney, or about the climate 
of Australia, the occupations and characteristics of 
the people, etc., it should be supported by such oral 
discussion, by such investigation and topical treat- 
ment as will guarantee interest and facts worth 
while. 
Carpenter's Australia, The Little Journey Series, and 
Kellogg's ''Australia and the Islands of the Sea" will 
furnish more material than can be presented in the 
allotted time. The teacher will be obliged to select. 



62 



FIFTH GRADE. A CLASS. 



The following outline is intended to be suggestive rather than 
mandatory. Teachers should not feel required to follow it 
except in its spirit and aim. They are to use discrimination in 
the use of the adopted text, in the selection of topics to be 
treated, and in the choice of facts to be emphasized. 

Scope and Importance of the Work. 

One half-year is to be devoted here to a study of Europe, and 
to a rapid review of the elementary geography of all the conti- 
nents. This half-year completes the first round of geography 
study- — -the first movement outward from the Home Geography 
of the third grade to an elementary knowledge of the different 
Peoples of the Earth. The children entering the A fifth class 
have used the Home Geography as basic — as a connecting link 
between their own immediate surroundings and the outside 
world. From their own environment with all its natural fea- 
tures and phenomena, with all its local life, industries, com- 
modities, they have been led outward and have been given an 
insight into the physical and climatic surroundings, into the cus- 
toms, habits, achievements and even into the historic interests 
of the people of North America, South America, Asia, Africa, 
and Australia. But one continent now remains, to complete 
this first movement. Next to the United States, its geography is 
the most important in the world. As much time is to be de- 
voted to the study of this one continent as was given to South 
America, Asia, Africa, and Australia combined. Europe is now 
to be the center of interest for months. It is a big undertak- 
ing, yet a great opportunit^^ 

Even the very first lesson should aroiise interest in anticipating 
the field of study that lies before the class. Why should so 
much time be given to this one continent, the smallest af all 



63 



except Australia? Children, from the first, should be led to 
appreciate the fact that Europe is the home of our forefathers. 

It has, to-day, more people in proportion to its area than any 
other continent. 

One-fourth of all the people in the world live in Europe. 

Europeans are chiefly the Caucasian race, which holds the 
highest degree of civilization on the earth. 

Europe is the richest of the continents in history, literature, 
mythology, science, learning, commerce, industry, etc. 

It is the tourist's stamping ground, and offers to travelers and 
students a variety of natural scenery, famous architecture, 
and world-known land-marks. 

It stands closely related to the United States in all the latter's 
history and development and in its present-day outlook. 

It is a safe and profitable field of study for A fifths. 
B. of E. Page 55. 



The Aim. 

The aim of the teacher should be to give a general elementary 
survey of the life of Europe — to lead the fifth grade pupils into 
an interesting acquaintance with the different peoples and their 
environments. It is assumed that any good teaching of the 
geography of Europe must be reinforced by a considerable 
reference to its history. It is not conceivable, at this stage of 
the child's advancement, how the interesting facts of European 
history may be isolated from the study of geographical locations 
in Europe. Such geographical topics as England, Rome, Greece, 
Vesuvius, and Holland, when presented to the children for the 
first time, are scarcely more geographical than historical. 
So the work is to be presented with the knowledge of the fact 
that nearly every geographical location of importance, whether 
it be river, lake, mountain, glen, plain, coast-line, or city, may 
be touched in an interesting way by some personal story, some 
biography, history, legend or myth. While there is to be no 
attempt to teach consecutive history, the personal and ideal 
elements are to supplement in order to lend attractiveness to 
the localities studied. 

To give an elementary insight into the life of Europe, to create 



64 



an interest in its people and its geographical and historical con- 
tent, to lay a foundation for literary and artistic taste, to widen 
the experience and to enlarge the culture of youth, is the best 
thing for which the teacher of fifth grade children can hope 
from her work in geography. 



Sources of Material. 

The adopted text should be used chiefly as a reference book. 
No teacher can successfully teach Europqfto fifth grade children 
and follow literally any . one text. The information and 
inspiration must come from many sources. The teacher is 
rather to avoid bookish treatment and bookish drills for the sake 
of a live inquiry into the life of the continent, into the different 
nationalities, peoples, the various centers of industry, the places 
of interest, etc. All this work is to be presented and developed 
by means of imaginary travel, descriptions, picture study, open 
conversations, supplementary reading, reproductions, story, 
songs, and by talks from persons who have traveled in Europe. 
In working up the geographical facts it is assumed that each 
teacher will avail herself of all relief, physical, political and 
blackboard maps of Europe, and a large globe. She should 
work up her materials from standard books of reference. That 
class is most fortunate whose teacher can bring to it the culture 
that comes from reading related literature; the imagination and 
enthusiasm that come from a study of mythology; the example 
and interest that come from history, and the ideals that are em- 
bodied in art. The following are some of the books that should 
be accessable to the A fifth teacher and children: 

Jane Andrews' Ten Boys. 

Guerber's Stories of the Greeks. 

Guerber's Stories of the Romans. 

Guerber's Legends of the Rhine. 

Harding's Greek Gods, Heroes and Men. 

Harding's City of Seven Hills. 

Baldwin's Fift}^ Famous Stories Retold. 

Carpenter's Europe. 

Coe's Modern Europe. 

Youth Companion Series of Travels in Europe. 



65 



Little Journey Series. 

Clarke's Stories. 

Baldwin's Old Greek Stories. 

Kingsley's Old Greek Heroes. 

Jennie Hall's Viking Tales. 

Louise Maitland's Heroes of Chivalry. 

Stoddard Lectures. 



Steps in the Teaching Process. 

There are four steps which should more or less consciously 
guide the teacher as she presents the facts concerning each 
people. 

(a) Presentation of such historic materials as will, in this 
age of self-complacency, exhibit as ideals some of those 
manly virtues that stern necessity has bred in each 
particular people. 

(b) Presentation of the present life-content of each people 
whereby boys and girls, thru observation and im- 
agination, may be given a panoramic view of the com- 
plex life of Europe. 

(c) A constant emphasis of the fact that natural environ- 
ment functions in man's relation to earth and to civili- 
zation. The physiographic basis and its close sequences 
are thus traced, time after time, in the effects of physi- 
cal and climatic conditions upon plants, animals, and 
also upon mankind. 

Tt may be said, however, that while the causal 
idea has some place in all A fifth teaching of geography 
in pointing out the effects of latitude, altitude, glacial 
actions, winds, ocean currents, etc., traced even to 
individual countries in such manner that pupils plainly 
see these effects; yet, this is not the time for a study 
of rational geography. It is still the perceptive stage 
of geographical study aided by the imagination. 

This is the kind of geography for A fifths, while 
the causal idea is to furnish the principle for all sixth 
and seventh grade geography, the last round of the 
study of the continents. 



66 



(d) Nationalities as Type Studies. 

The different nationalities of Europe are to furnish the 
order of topics for the A fifth pupils. Whatever detail 
attends this first study of the continent should grow 
out of the inquiry into the life and environments of the 
various peoples. The organization of bodies of in- 
teresting and instructive facts about each nationality 
as Greece, Rome, and Holland, etc., is designed to give 
a degree of unity to the work and, at the same time, a 
rich descriptive content. The quantity of material 
possible to present is practically infinite, a hundred 
times what any child can master. A wise choice of 
matter is, therefore, imperative. Organizing all the 
study around each nationality; relating all sub-topics 
to the national life and characteristics, it is hoped, 
will facilitate the task of choosing and eliminating 



Outline of the Introductory Study of Europe. 

Approach the study of Europe with a day's review of the 
children's ideas of the Earth. 

By use of the globe, the hemispheres should be reviewed, the 
continents, and oceans. The larger world divisions should be 
imaged by the children away from books or maps. The use of 
meridians and parallels should be once more noted and the 
prime meridian should be located and explained. 

1. Location of Europe. 

(a) With reference to the hemispheres, to the other con- 
tinents, and to the oceans. The relative positions 
of Europe and the other continents may be impressed 
once more by reference to the Columbus purposes and 
voyages, to Magellan's and Drake's circumnaviga- 
tions, Marco Polo's voyages, the route of fleets from 
America and Europe to the Eastern Waters. 

(b) With reference to the equator and the zones. Note 
the latitude of the tips of the southern peninsulas. 
Relative points in the United States. Note the north- 
ern latitude and compare with America and Asia. 

(c) With reference to the prime meridian. The longitude 



67 



of London? Follow the prime meridian thru Spain 
and Africa. The longitude compared of prominent 
points in Europe and America. 

2. Extent and Size. 

The extent and size of Europe should be etnphasized 
at this time. The continents should be learned in 
order of size. Pupils may use the scale in estimating 
the length of journeys. 

3. Outline and Relief of the Continent. 

First arrive at the general triangular shape of the 
continent. Children should sketch the outline off- 
hand on the board and on paper, giving recognition 
to the prominent peninsulas, capes, indentations, 
islands, etc. In these off-hand sketches, the general 
courses of the Rhine, Rhone, Danube and Volga should 
be designated. The political divisions should not be 
represented in these first outlines. 

Each pupil should build up for himself a permanent 
relief map. This may be made of papier-mache or of 
salt and flour. These relief maps should be con- 
structed on some base of mounting board, trunk-board 
or card, such as will promise permanence to the map. 

The outline for a relief map should not be drawn 
off-hand nor carelessly. When the end in view is the 
relief of the continent, the outline and all the larger 
physical divisions should be placed by stencils, trac- 
ing, or by some such means as promise accuracy. 

The Prominent Surface Features of Europe. 

(a) The historic peninsulas and their characteristic high- 

lands. 

(b) The British Isles and highlands. 

(c) Backbone of the continent — The Alps. 

(d) The Lowlands of Holland. 

(e) The great Russian Plains. 

(f) Four great river valleys, Rhine, Rhone, Danube and 

Volga. 
The political divisions should not be represented on relief maps. 
At the time the general surface of Europe is being studied it 



68 



is only the leading -physical features that should be represented. 
Intelligent Americans know but little and care less about the 
Jura, the Cevennes, Carpathian or Kiolen mountains. They 
know, in general, that these certain regions are high and moun- 
tainous. That is all a child should ' 'feel" in his relief. The aim 
should be in the study of the relief to give a general idea of the 
continent's outline and physiography. In working for this 
general idea, the teacher should realize that the relief map is but 
a supplement as a globe, map or book. The child is not to 
think of his self-made map as the end. 

No vivid and lively image can be obtained from these two or 
three lessons on relief if the lessons are barren of description, 
pictures and discussion. The relief map is only a means, sup- 
plementing discussion and assisting in forming correct imagery. 
Europe — its outline and general surface — is the subject at hand, 
and not relief maps. That teaching is a failure which does not 
get children beyond the flour and salt, the papier-mache, or the 
printed page. So there is need for some live description, some 
illustrative teaching, some study of picture, and natural scenery, 
and some reference to the life and customs and the climatic con- 
ditions, as each great regiqn is built up in relief. In other words, 
as the children approach the continent they are given insight 
into some of the larger and more general facts concerning the 
historic peninsulas, the Alps, or the highland regions, or plains; 
but the detailed study, the final inquiry into each region, should 
come later with a study of the nationalities. For instance, as 
the children are working up the relief of the Alps, that they may 
be interested in the ''real Alps", the teacher may feel called 
upon to impress the facts that the Alps dominate Europe; that 
they are the mountains of surpassing interest; that they are the 
best known mountains in the world. She may feel called upon 
to work up descriptions, and present pictures of the Alpine 
scenery, the lakes, passes, and inns. She may feel justified in 
telling the ''Tell" legend or even in reproducing chapter XXVI 
of Carpenter's Europe, ''The Alps," and so on. But she should 
not go into as much detail in the study of the Alps, as later, in 
a study of the Swiss and Roman People. The'point is, that the 
interest of children must be awakened in the reality, even in this 
introductory relief study. 



09 



A Study of the People of Europe. 

Europe has interest and profit for the children in this first 
study because of the variety of its nationalities, because of the 
characteristics of its many peoples. It is a study of European 
peoples that is to furnish the unifying principle and the order of 
procedure. All detailed study attending this half-year's work 
should be organized around an inquiry into the life and en- 
vironment of each particular people. Here is the principle that 
should guide the A fifth teacher. It is that principle which, 
when worked out, will put an anticipating, an inquiring, an 
assimilating mood into the minds of the children, relative to 
Etirope's peoples. 

The Order of Procedure. 

In taking up a study of the nationalities of Europe, the 
order is determined in part by the order of historic 
development. This begins with a study of Greece and 
R-ome, then the rest of the continental peoples, con- 
cluding with a very valuable acquaintance with Eng- 
land and the people of the English possessions, all 
opening the way for the last four weeks review of 
the Geography of the World. 

Relation of History and Geography. 

It is not only the present interests of these various 
nationalties that are studied. The children are given 
an insight into the historic aspect of each civilization, 
so that the life of each people is always touched and 
illumined by legend, myth, folk-lore, biography, and 
the personal element. Types of people are thus indi- 
vidualized and idealized; geography and history are 
correlated — the one the theatre in space, the other the 
drama in time. No attempt whatever is made to 
teach consecutive history as such. It is all a study of 
life; and the boy has no use, at this stage, for dates or 
the background of history. He will find interest in 
the study of the people and their struggles. He wants 
to think of historic experiences as entering into and 
belonging to the present characteristics. of the people. 
Europe is rich in mythology, in its types of the heroic 



70 



and adventurous, in literature, art, architecture, 
scenery and achievement. Much of this in its ele- 
mentary way is to be set before the child in this first 
study of the geography of the continent. 



Apportionment of Time. 

The following apportionment of time is deemed 
sufficient to give each important subject a reasonably 
exhaustive treatment : 

(1) Greece, two weeks; (2) Rome, two weeks; (3) 
Spain and France, two weeks; (4) Belgium and Holland, 
one week; (5) Up the Rhine and Switzerland, one 
week; (6) Down the Danube, Austria, and Turkey, one 
week; (7) Russia, one week; (8) Scandinavia and 
Germany, one week; (9) The British Isles and the 
Empire, three weeks. 



Greece. 

After the few lessons planned in the above paragraphs upon 
the location, outline and relief of Europe as a whole, the children 
may be introduced to Grecians. With their own texts always 
open, the map always before them, with much supplement in 
reading, picture-study, mythology and story, several views 
should be given of these people. 

(a) A general introductory view, as provided b}'' a study 
of Cleon, The Greek Boy, who ran at the Olympic 
Games. Jane Andrews' Ten Boys. (Not more than a 
lesson or two should be given to this subject.) 

(b) A historic view, showing the place of the old Greeks, 
Sparta, and Athens, in history, and recovmting some of 
the most heroic and ideal incidents. See Guerber's 
Stories of the Greeks for the story of Hector, 
Achilles, Troy, The Days of the Tyrants, The Coming 
and Destruction of the Persian Hosts, Battle of 
Marathon, Xerxes Crossing the Hellespont, Leonidas 
at Thermopylae, Pericles, Socrates, Alexander the 
Great, etc. 



71 



Guerber's Stories of the Greeks may be used for 
the regular reading lessons while the class studies the 
geography of Greece. The teacher should be familiar 
with such books as Baldwin's Old Greek Stories, 
Kingley's Greek Heroes, Hall's Homeric Stories. 

(c) A glance into mythology. See Harding's Greek 
Gods, Heroes, and Men, Guerber's Myths of Greece. 

(d) An insight into present Grecian hfe, the customs, 
habits, occupations, and products. The ruins of once 
beautiful temples. Greek poetry, painting, sculpture, 
architecture. Pictures of the Acropolis, Parthenon, 
temples, arches — The Doric, Ionic and Corinthian 
orders. See Carpenter's Europe. 



Home. 

The suggestions given above for Greece should guide in the 
teaching of Italy and Rome. 

(a) The introductory lesson. Story of Romulus and 
Remus. See Harding's City of Seven Hills; The Com- 
ing of the Greeks led by Aeneas; Story of Dido. 
For the Story of Cincinnatus, see "City of Se\'en Hills". 
Story of Horatius, the Roman Boy, whose ancestor kept 
the bridge so well, see the ' ' Ten Boys". Other history 
stories such as the Destruction of Rome by the Gauls, 
the War with Hannibal, Julius Caesar, and the World's 
Empire, etc., are interestingly and briefly told in the 
"City of Seven Hills", or Guerber's Story of the 
Romans. 

(b) Mythology. See Guerber's Myths of Greece and 
Rome. 

(c) Modern Italy. See Carpenter's Europe. "Venice", 
Chap. XL; ''Northern Italy", Chap. XLI; ''Rome", 
Chap. XLII; ''Naples and Vesuvius", Chap. XLIII. 
See ''Under Sunny Skies" of the Youth's Companion 
Series. 

By means of descriptions and pictures give ideas of 
the Forum, Colosseum, the Arches, St. Peters, the 
Vatican, the Pantheon, the Appian Way, Church of 



72 



St. Maria, The Temple, Claudian Aqueduct, the 
Cathedrals at Florence, Milan, Venice, The Tower of 
Pisa, etc. The language and reading periods may 
safely corne to the help of this work for a~ short time. 

Spain and France. 

(a) Spain. Columbus. The Spanish- American territories. 
The Spanish Armada. The Spanish- American AVar. 
''Rural Spain", Carpenter, Chap. XLIV; ''Cities of 
Spain", Chap. XLV. Gibraltar. 

(b) France. A glimpse at its histor}'. Charlemagne, 
Joan of Arc, "Rural France". Carpenter, Chap. X. 
The French Revolution. Napoleon. 

(c) Present-day France. ''Commercial and Manufactur- 
ing France," Carpenter, Chap. XI; ''Paris", 
Chaps. XII and XIII. Picture Study. Arch of 
Triumph. Church of Notre Dame, La Madeleine, Les 
Tuileries, Louvre, Eiffel Tower, Champs Elysees, Hotels, 
Palaces, etc. the ''Little Journey Series". 

Belgium and Holland. 

Carpenter, Chap. XIV, "The Busiest Workshop 
of Europe"; also Chap. XV, ''A Country Below the 
Sea", and Chap. XVI, ''In the Dutch Cities". Devel- 
opment of subjects of dikes, windmills, Belgium and 
Holland industries. Special reference to points of 
interest in Brussels, Amsterdam, and the Hague. 

Up the Rhine and in Switzerland. 

Carpenter, Chap. XXV, XXVI, and XXVII. 
The Lowlands, Rotterdam, Cologne, Cathedrals, 
Castles, Maus Tower, and ' ' Fair Bingen on the Rhine", 
Frankfort, Heidelburg, Strasburg, Railroad up the 
Alps, the glaciers, Lakes Constance and Como, St. 
Gothard Pass, Mont Blanc, St. Bernard, New Simplon 
Tunnel, The Swiss People, their government, their 
occupations, products, vineyards, Swiss Cities. 
Guerber's Legends of the Rhine. 



73 



Down the Danube, Thru Austria and Turkey. 

Special reference to Oberammergau. The teacher 
should select the most important and most in- 
teresting facts from the following chapters in 
Carpenter's Europe: Chap. XXVIII, XXX, XXIX, 
XXXI, XXXVII and XXXVIII. These chapters 
treat on the following topics: The Upper Danube, 
Vienna, Hungary and Hungarians, On the Lower 
Danube, In Constantinople, and Among the Moham- 
medans. 



Russia. 



Carpenter's ' ' General View of Russia", Chap. XXXII ; 
''Russian Peasants", Chap. XXXIII; ''In St. Peters- 
burg", Chap. XXXIV; ''Commercial and Manufactur- 
ing Russia about Moscow", Chap. XXXV; ''Down 
the Volga", Chap. XXXVI; Special descriptions and 
views of peasant villages, St. Petersburg, The Winter 
Palace, Moscow, Kremlin, etc. Special reference to 
Tolstoi, the peasantry and the government. 



Scandinavia. 

Carpenter, Chap. XVII, XVIII, and XIX, for such 
subjects as the ' ' Land of the Danes", ' ' Where the Sun 
Shines at Midnight", and ''Travels in Norway and 
Sweden". 



Germany. 

It is suggested that the teacher follow the plan here as out- 
lined for Greece and Rome. 

(a) The historic aspect. The story of Wulf. the Saxon 
Boy who helped to make England. See ''The Ten 
Boys". Story of Hengist and Horsa. German His- 
tory Stories and German Folk-Lore. See Guerber's 
Legends on the Rhine. 



74 



(b) Insight into Modern Germany. In the German Cities 
Carpenter, Chap. XX, XXI, XXII. Hamburg, 
Bremen, Cologne, Frankfort, Danzig, Berhn, Special 
views of the Palace of the Emperor, National Gallery 
at Berlin, Brandenburg Gate, Equestrian Statue of 
Frederick the Great, Statue of Goethe, Cologne Cathe- 
dral, Frankfort-on-the-Main, and Goethe's House, 
Heidelburg, Sans Souci, Castles on the Rhine, Cathe- 
dral at Worms, Strasburg Cathedral, Art Gallery, etc. 
A study of the Emperor; Carpenter, Chap. XXIII. 
Rural and Manufacturing Germany; Carpenter, Chap. 
XXIV. 



The British Isles and Empire. 

(a) History. Review of Wulf, the Saxon Boy. Stories of 
Alfred the Great. Baldwin's Fifty Famous 
Stories Retold. Story of the Danish and Norman 
Invasions. The teacher may take time to teach 
the most salient points in the following stories from 
the ''Ten Boys": Gilbert, the Page, Who One Day 
Became a Knight. Roger, the English Lad, Who 
Longed to Sail the Spanish Main. Stories of the 
Crusades, of Queen Elizabeth, of Gladstone, etc. 

(b) Modern England. ''Manufacturing England", Car- 
penter, Chap. VII. ''London, The Commercial Cen- 
ter of the World", Chap. VIII. 

Other cities of England and prominent English views. 
The Thames, Houses of Parliament, Westminster 
Abbey, The Tower of London, Trafalgar Square, Lon- 
don Bridge St. James Palace, St. Paul's Cathedral, 
Buckingham Palace, Bank of England, etc. Oxford 
University Views, Windsor Castle, Shakespeare's 
House, at Stratford-on-Avon, Ann Hathaway 's Cot- 
tage, Holy Trinity Church, Famous English Cathe- 
drals and Castles. Rural England; Carpenter, Chap. 
VI. Ireland; Carpenter, Chap. II and III and Scot- 
land, Chap. IV and V. Special reference to the homes 
and writings of Shakespeare, Milton, Burns, Scott, etc. 



75 



A lesson or two at the conclusion of the study of 
the British Isles should be devoted to a general view of 
English dominions. A brief discussion of English 
possessions over the world, South Africa, India, 
Australia, Canada, etc., etc. 



General Review, 

It is hoped that the study of Europe may conclude two or 
three weeks before the close of the semester, and that these final 
weeks of the semester may be devoted to a rapid but practical 
review of the world's geography. It should be exclusively an 
old-fashioned, practical drill review on locations and maps. It 
should be confined largely to Europe and America and should 
be accompanied by off-hand map drawing, and a great deal of 
memory work. Important countries, boundaries, cities, rivers, 
lakes, mountains, capes, products, exports, imports, etc., should 
be located, outlined, and memorized. Children must not leave 
this fifth grade without some drill upon important geographical 
facts. 



76 



SIXTH GRADE. B CLASS. 



Object of a Detailed Outline. 

It is the intention of this outHne : 

First, To familarize the B sixth teacher with the place she 

is to hold in the entire course of geography in the 
grades. 

Second, To furnish her with a statement of a single aim — with 
a single working" principle which shall be incorporated 
into all her teaching, which shall guide her in the 
selection of all the subject-matter and inspire her in the 
presentation of such subject-matter. 

Third, To offer the B sixth teacher a suggestive outline of the 
geographical matter that should receive emphasis, 
especially in view of the place the half-year's work 
holds in the school course, and in view of the aim — 
the end to be realized. 

The Place of B Sixth Geography in the Course of Study. 

B Fourth, From Home Geograph}^ to an elementar^^ 
knowledge of North America and the 
Earth as a unit. 

A Fourth, The United States. 

B Fifth, South America, Asia, Africa and Australia. 

A Fifth, Europe and Review of Geography of the 
World. 

B Sixth, Physical and Mathematical Geography. 

A Sixth, United States and North America. 
B Seventh, South America, Asia, Africa and Atistralia. 
A Seventh, Europe and Review of Geography of the 
World. 

It will be observed from the above outline that the B sixth 
geography is to stand in between two rounds of study of the con- 



77 



tinents, between two distinct movements — two ''spirals" of 
geographic content. 

, During the fourth and fifth school years, as is indicated, 
the children take a general survey of all the continents. These 
continents are all studied again in the sixth and seventh years, 
but from an entirely different point of view. The first study of 
the continents in the intermediate grades is characterized by 
the single effort of the teacher to give her pupils a general ac- 
quaintance with the people of all lands. In developing the 
elementary ideas of the geography of each continent, the first 
emphasis is placed upon the people as they are found today with 
all their distinguishing customs, habits, modes of living, stir- 
roundings, etc. The Personal Element furnishes the guiding 
principle to the teacher in this first round of study of the people 
of the earth. While the two years' course in the intermediate 
grades aims at a general knowledge of the geography of the world, 
yet all interest centers in the people. This interest focuses not 
only on the people as they are found at present, but as often 
upon their more primitive life, upon the pj-oneer aspect, upon a 
study of the heroic, the adventurous and the noble. This plan 
keeps history closely related to geography in the fourth and 
fifth years. It is an elementary geographj^ study, enriched by 
historic content. 

Now, in the last half of the sixth year and all thru the seventh, 
the continents are studied once more, but by an entirely different 
method of approach, from an entirely different point of view, 
and with a hope of entirely different results. 

Here, for the first time, history comes to such importance in 
the school course that it is allowed a separate portion of each 
day's program. Here, for the first time, history is tavight 
consecutively and children are led as far as possible to appre- 
ciate a background in the field of history. Text book history 
is now to be in the school program daily. 



A New Basis of Geography. 

But what about geography in the sixth and seventh years? 
What is this new principle that should prevail in this second 
round of the study of the continents? It is no longer a study 
of the People with all their interesting facts and features, but 



78 



a study of geography proper, the ' 'Earth as the Home of Man". 
It is the study of the relations of Hfe and civiUzation to the 
various physical and climatic conditions of the earth. The 
geography of the continents is now concerned not so much with 
the peculiar modes of life, and with story or legend, not so much 
with the personal element, as with the larger economic, industrial 
and social interests of the people modified by physical environ- 
ment. Each section is now approached from the standpoint 
of industrial belts, climatic zones, great commercial routes and 
commercial centers. In other words, it is now a study of belts, 
of occupations, social customs, etc., as determined by cause. 
Cause and causal sequences have first consideration now. Or, 
in still other words, physiography rises into close relationship 
with vital geography. 

With the above facts in mind, the B sixth teacher can see 
her place. She is to spend a half year in preparatory work — 
preparatory to a more scientific geography. She is to open up 
the study of cause and effect and is to spend a half year on the 
physical and mathematical geography of the earth. The 
geography of this half year is to lead to a larger knowledge of 
the facts of inorganic environment which enter into relationship 
with the earth's inhabitants. 

The Aim of the B Sixth Teacher. 

B sixth geography is to hold an important place in the larger 
course. A certain definite principle should guide the teacher 
day after day — a sole purpose, week in and week out. Her aim 
should be to lead her children to a fuller understanding of the 
categories, cause and effect, as manifested by the earth. She 
is to prepare the way for a two-years' study of the relationship 
of the earth to the life on the earth Here is where B sixth 
geography becomes distinct from that in the lower grades. It 
is essentially physical and mathematical and prepares the way 
for a more rational and a more problematic geography in the 
upper grades. It is a half-year's work upon which much depends. 

The Subject-Matter. 

The adopted text is Frye's Grammar School Geography. 
The portion allotted to the B sixth grade is the first sixty 



79 



pages of the book. An outline follows, showing what matter 
should receive emphasis. The outline does not follow the order 
of the book. Most of the facts are to be taught inductively 
and by illustration even before the book is brought to aid. No 
emphasis is to be put on verbal definitions and these are not 
to be memorized from the texts. The outline suggests the order 
of topics, which is not the order of the pages in the book. The 
adopted text and as much supplementary reading as possible 
are to be used to bring light and explanation to any par- 
ticular subject or topic under discussion, and to assist in 
the topical treatment. 

A great danger to the teacher may lie in an effort to attempt 
too much, too many details. The outline of subject-matter 
which follows is quite comprehensive so far as the range of its 
subjects is concerned. The work must be kept elementary. 
It must be adapted to the age and maturity of the children. 
The teacher's greatest task is to so familiarize herself with the 
matter suggested that she may properly select and emphasize 
only the great and fundamental facts. The best teachers will 
find it necessary to make daily preparation. They will draw 
their materials from outside the text book. The following 
references are suggested : 

Dodge's Reader of Physical Geography. (In the hands of 
the children.) 

Redway's New Basis of Geography. 

Redway's Physical Geography. 

Shaler's First Book in Geology. 

Tarr's Physical Geography. 

Tarr & McMurry's North America. 

Davis's Physical Geography, and Teacher's Guide. 

Other standard physical geographies and elementary 
physics. 

The Earth. Form, Size and Composition. 

(a) Proofs of its rotundity. (See the text.) 

(1) Many persons have gone round the earth. 
Who? Trace the route on the globe. 

(2) The sky line or horizon and the steamers. Secure 
pictures illustrating this fact. IMake drawings. 



80 



(3) The appearance of new stars to travelers going 
north or south. Make special effort to get the 
imagery here. 

(4) Shadow of the earth. Strive for the correct 
imagery or idea here. Use globes. A disc or 
plate will not always make a circular shadow. 

(b) Size. Diameter and circumference, actual and 
approximate. 

(c) Composition of the earth. 

Develop the idea of the three forms of matter that 
compose the earth, — sohd, Hquid and gaseous. 

Rock composes almost all of the earth's body. Rocks at sur- 
face, such as seen at chffs, canons, peaks, quarries, Gibraltar. 
Use pictures. Rocks beneath the surface, as seen in railroad 
cuttings, ravines, borings, mines, etc. Use pictures. (See 
Dodge's Reader. Chapter VII.) 

Of what is rock composed? From the fact that the earth is 
now a great rock body, what do you conclude about its former 
state before it became rock? 

Explain the experience of men who work in mines, tunnels, 
etc.. with underground temperatures. What is lava? What 
are ores? How formed? Name some. Collect specimens. 
Account for interior gases and liquids. 

Discuss volcanoes as to cause, action, parts, etc Use pictures 
and represent by chalk or crayon modeling. (See Dodge's 
Reader, Chapter XIV.) 

Explain geysers, hot springs, etc. Employ pictures and chalk 
modeling. 

Decomposition of rock. Variety of causes. (See text, page 
4.) Also, Tarr & McMurry's Home Geographv. Study 
pictures and illustrations. 

Soil and its production. Kinds of soil. Humus. Clay. Sand. 
Leaf mold. "Run down" soil. FertiHzed soil. Bring in 
specimens. See Goff and Mayne's First Principles of Agricul- 
ture; also. Dodge's Reader, Chapter XX. 

The great globe of rock is covered with bodies of water. 
Show^ why the ocean and seas are not continuous. The relation 
of continents to oceans. Islands to oceans. Show pictures of 
volcanic islands in the oceans. 



81 



Water forms. Oceans, gulfs, bays, seas, straits, lakes, salt 
lakes, ponds, springs, rivers, river systems. (See text, pages 6-7.) 

A deep ocean of air surrounds the entire earth. Depth of the 
air. Height from the earth. Air pressure explained and de- 
monstrated. Composition. Its elements. How the air takes 
up moisture. Principle of evaporation. See Tarr & McMurry's 
Home Geography, pages 70-80. 

Explain and illustrate so far as possible saturation, vapor, 
clouds, dew, fog, frost, rain, snow. 

Do not take up the subject of winds in this general discussion 
of the earth and its composition. 

Note: — Dodge's Reader in Physical Geography should be in 
the hands of the children during the semester. The teacher may 
feel free to make occasional use of the nature study and 
general-work period supplementing the lessons under discus- 
sion in the geography hour. 



Mathematical Geography. 

(1) The Earth's Rotation. 

Time required. Explain the terms, axis, pole, equator, etc. 
The deception as to the movements of the sun. Illustrate by 
the movements of a train. Cause of day and night. Directions 
on the earth. Hemispheres, eastern, western, northern and 
southern. 

Latitude and longitude. Parallels. Meridians. Degrees. 
Equator. Prime meridian. Do not explain the tropics, and 
the arctic circles at this time. They should be taught later 
when the inclination of the axis and the earth's revolutions are 
developed and explained. Pupils must first get simple but 
correct ideas about equator, north latitude, south latitude, 90 
degrees north, 90 degrees south, east longittide, west longi- 
tude, 180 degrees east, 180 degrees west. The time to develop 
this idea of latitude and longitude is while the rotation of the 
earth, the cause of day and night, etc., are being studied. 
Explain the light hemi sphere, the night hemisphere. 



82 



Note: — The following directions for study call only for 
explanations of the rotating movement of the earth. The 
teacher should not confuse by bringing in the revolutionary 
movement. Avoid -discussing the earth's revolution here. 

By the use of the globe, illustrate the relative position of 
earth at noon, midnight, six o'clock a. m., six o'clock p. m. 

Develop the idea of twenty-four hours difference in time on 
the earth's surface. Fifteen degrees represent an hour's time, 
etc. 

Use the globe to show noon at London. Noon at St. Louis. 
When it is noon at St. Louis, let children reason out the time 
of da}^ at Denver, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Carson City, 
London. 

Develop the rule for reckoning the time east and west of a 
given meridian. 

A number of practical problems, such as usually appear in 
the arithmetic work, under longitude and time should be given 
at this time. Confine most of the problems to degrees, avoid- 
ing minutes and seconds. The subject of longitude and time 
should be eliminated from arithmetic and taught exclusively 
in this connection. Children must be kept at a practical drill 
until they fully understand the relation of time to longitude. 

Develop the subject of Standard Time. When it is noon by 
the sun at New York, it is before noon at Buffalo, Chicago, 
Minneapolis, and so on. Measuring from east to west, every 
place in the United States has a different time by the sun. Show 
how this fact might be a source of great annoyance to railroads. 
The necessity of Standard Time belts, Eastern, Central, Moun- 
tain, and Pacific. (See Tarr and McMurry's North America, 
pages 116-118.) At what points, then, is sun time identical with 
railroad time? Where is the sun time ahead, where behind 
railroad time? Too much use cannot be made of the globe and 
the large wall map in actual study. 

While making this general study of the earth, have children 
follow the fortieth parallel around the globe, making an outline 
of twenty great cities, situated on or near this paraHel. Why 
so many great cities? The whole subject will be better im- 
pressed if children actually memorize the latitude and longitude 
(approximate) of such points as New Orleans, Philadelphia, San 



83 



Francisco, Den\'er, City of Mexico, Quito, Madrid, London, 
Cairo (Egypt). Peking, etc. 

Note: — The teacher is once more reminded that she should 
avoid the discussion of cause of zones, tropics, etc., in this study 
of latitude and longitude. The next subject, the revolution of 
the earth, will give light to these topics. 

(2) The Earth's Revolution. 

Distance from the sun. 

Inclination of the axis. 

Revolution of the earth. 

Illustrate this motion by the use of spheres or with the globe. 
Emphasize, first of all, that the inclination of the axis does 
not vary. Is the inclination always toward the svm? Use 
the globe; show the movement of the earth once around the 
sun. Keep the inclination correct. Call attention next to the 
elliptical pathway. 

By use of a rubber band or a mark, show a constant hemisphere 
of light and a constant hemisphere of darkness. Show that 
for three months the north polar regions pass more and more 
into light, and then for the next three months gradually out of 
the light, etc. Six months day, therefore, and six months night. 
Avoid details. 

Show that the earth is constantly rotating while it is revolving. 
This rotation does not* interfere with the six months' day. 
Entirely different at the equator. Show that the rotation causes 
there, alternating day and night. 

The north and south movement of the sun. Once more show 
the earth in its relative position to the sun, possibly in June. 
Inclination toward the sun. Make drawing. Direct rays on 
the tropic of cancer. Our summer. North pole in the light. 
Rays 233^ degrees beyond north pole. Determining limits of 
the arctic circle. Northern hemisphere mostly in light. Long 
days of summer, short nights. 

Gradually move the earth to its position in September. 
Direct rays on the equator. Equal length of days and night. 
Our autumn. Rays extending to the poles. 

Gradually move the earth to its position in December. In- 
clination away from sun. Make drawing. Direct rays on the 



84 



tropic of Capricorn. Rays do not now extend to the north 
pole, but to the arctic circle. Southern hemisphere mostly in 
light, northern hemisphere mosth' in dark. Our winter. Long 
nights of December in Minneapolis, short days. 

Gradually move the earth to its position in March. Direct 
rays again on the equator. Our spring. Equal length of days 
and nights once more. Rays extending to the poles. 

Region of direct rays of sun between the tropics. Position 
in June. Position in December. North and south these direct 
rays move annually. Illustrate by the globe once more. Width 
of the torrid zone, -47 degrees. 

Arctic circle. Illustrate once more. Rays beyond the north 
pole in June. At the pole in September, twenty-three and one- 
half degrees short of the pole in December. The arctic zone. Its 
width. 

Temperate zone. The tropics having once been determined 
and the arctic circle, then the temperate zone must be forty- 
three degrees. (See section II of Tarr and McMurry's North 
America for discussion of summer, winter, revolution, inclina- 
tion and zones.) 



Physical Geography. 

Study of zones. (See the text, page 27, Also Tarr & McMurry's 
North America.) 

(a) Zones of Light and Heat. ' 

Explain, once more, the origin of the term equator, 
tropic of cancer, tropic of Capricorn, arctic circles. 
What determines the location of these imaginary lines? 
What is the width (in degrees) of the torrid zone, tem- 
perate zone, the frigid zone? When does the sun's 
rays reach 23 3^ degrees beyond the north pole? 
Illustrate graphically. Where are the direct rays at 
such time? How many of the 360 degrees of the 
earth's surface lie in the torrid zone, in the temperate, 
in the frigid? Add all to make 360 degrees. 

Develop the fact that the imaginary lines above 
named mark zones of light rather than zones of heat. 
If latitude alone determined heat and climate, then 
these zones of light would be identical with the 



85 



zones of heat. The torrid zone of heat is not identi- 
cal with the torrid zone of Hght between the tropics. 
Why? Develop isothermal lines. Make drawing. 
Follow the temperate zone of heat around the earth. 

(b) The Equatorial Zone of Rain. 

The influence of heat. The principle of evaporation 
reviewed. The shifting of the equatorial rainbelt, 
north and south. Amazon region, Congo region, 
Ganges. Two rainy seasons annually in Venezuela and 
Panama. Why? (See the charts, Frye, page 31.) 

(c) Equatorial Zone of Wind. 

Influence of heat on air. The rising equatorial air. 
Connection with the equatorial rain-belt. Cause of 
westerly direction. Trade winds. Why so named? 
Note the Columbus pathway. 

Equatorial storms. Cyclones, tornadoes, and mon- 
soons. (See the chart, Frye, page 30.) 

(d) Equatorial Zones of Ocean Currents. 

Influence of heat on water. The heated tropical 
waters. Cause of westerly movement. Study of the 
chart, Frye, page 32. 

(e) The zones of return currents of water and wind. 
The return trades. Study of the Gulf Stream, and 
the Japan Current 

(f) Zones of Variable Winds and Rains. 

Causes of local winds. Land and sea breezes. Influ- 
ence of prevailing winds on climate. Rainless districts 
of the world. The Llano Estacado, The Sahara, etc. 

(g) Plant Zones. 

Pupils should here be held quite closely to the 
treatment as given by the adopted text, pp. 42-52, 
inclusive. This matter can be disposed of in reading 
lessons and class discussions. The plant life of each 
particular zone, the frigid, for example, or the tem- 
perate, or the torrid, should be followed around the 
globe. The pictures should receive special attention 
and study here. (See text.) Let the vegetation of 



86 



each zone stand out prominently. Have the children 
see the adjustment of the plant life to the physical 
and climatic conditions. 

(h) The Animal Zones. 

Follow rather closely the adopted text, pp. 53-5G. 
See suggestions under ''Plant Zones" above. 

(i) Race Zones. 

The black race, yellow race, white race, etc. See 
the adopted text, pp. 33-41 inclusive, and notes above 
on ''Plant Zones". 



87 



SIXTH GRADE. A CLASS. 



Preliminary Suggestion. 

The teacher of this grade should study carefully the sugges- 
tions to the B sixth teacher, especially those calling attention 
to the ' ' Place of B sixth geography in the course of study". No 
teacher can do her best work who does not know the preparation 
of her class, and the relation of her half year's work to the larger 
course in geography. Therefore^ it is urged that she study 
carefully the B sixth outlines. 

Scope of the Work. 

One half-year is to be devoted here to the detailed study of 
the United States and North America; fourteen or fifteen weeks 
to the United States and four or five weeks to the remainder of 
North America. The A sixth teacher is to start the children 
upon the last movement in their geography course. The class is 
to begin for the last time the study of the continents of the earth. 
This is to be the last opportunity for a mastery of the geography 
of the home country. 

The Way of Approach. 

The causal idea so thoroly developed in B sixth work is 
now to furnish a new way of approach to the study of any 
particular region. The study of causal relations is now to place 
the geography work upon a broad basis. 

In the intermediate grades, as the children studied the United 
States and the different peoples of the world, the aim of the 
teacher was to give them a somewhat general insight into modes 
of life, into interesting habits, customs, traditions, history, etc. 
The children were, in a sense, entertained by graphic descrip- 
tions and pictorial views of the different peoples of the world. 
It was a sort of panoramic form of representation by which the 



whole earth was viewed as a great theatre in setting and action. 
It was a kind of geography teaching built upon the observa- 
tional powers of the child and developed thru constant appeals 
to the imagination. The unifying principle in all the teaching 
rested in an emphasis of the personal element, and it was this 
portrayal of the personal that gave a rich embodiment to the 
geography work, and contributed much to general culture, and 
to the enrichment of child experience. 

Now the children are to take up the study of geography proper 
which considers more the earth in its relation to life. It is 
essentially the fact of relation of- earth and inhabitants that 
is to give unity to the work in the grammar grades. It is the 
principle which relates physiographic topics Vvdth industrial, 
commercial, political, historical and social topics that is to fur- 
nish the new point of approach. The children are no longer 
to aim at a bird's-eye view of the different peoples, which is too 
likely to end in a fragmentar}^ and superficial accumulation of 
interesting facts ; but they are to pass from geographical facts 
to causes, from appeals to the powers of observation and imagi- 
nation to the powers of reason and memory. While it will be 
necessary to study facts, yet these facts must not now be barren 
or meagre or stripped of detail, but must be studied in their 
relations. In order that the causal nexus may be seen, in order 
that working causes may be reasoned out, it will be necessary 
to enter upon deeper details. Children at this age are not only 
concerned about facts but they are becoming more and more 
inquisitive about causes. It is this causal idea, then, that will 
bring together into central topics, facts of interest drawn from 
several sources, such as the physical, commercial, historical and 
industrial. It is wholly artificial and unnatural to study the 
physical features of any locality isolated from the other interests. 
Isolate, for example, the physical facts of the New England 
states from the commercial, industrial, or political geography, 
and the bare facts stand forth without cause or relation, entirely 
out of their proper setting and meaning. So the constant 
question for the child as he takes up the geography of the United 
States for this last time, is, what physical and climatic conditions 
have directly influenced these people in their modes of life, 
their industries, their commercial activity, and so on? On the 
other hand, what have the people of this section doiie reacting 



89 



against their physical limitations? Geography thus furnishes 
two sets of causal forces, one springing from physical nature and 
the other from man and his enterprises. It is man and nature, 
man in nature, but not man alone, nor nature alone. 

Two Extremes in Method. ^ 



There are two extremes prevalent in the methods of teaching 
the geography of the grammar grades. 

The one, the older method of approach, the more traditional 
method, approaches each section entirely from the standpoint 
of the map. The causal idea never arises. Facts are studied 
but unrelated. Map drawing and map study constitute the 
body of the work, which begins and ends in old-fashioned 
memory drills upon location. The study and the teaching is 
wholly bookish and barren of description or discussion. There 
is no content, no body to the teaching. The appeal is constantly 
to the memory. 

The second method, and other extreme, came more recently, 
ignores the map, frowns at drill on locations and at book- 
geography and spends all its time in what is designated as a 
more pedagogical and more professional method of teaching. 
It begins and ends in development work. Everything is 
''developed" by means of imaginary journey, description, pic- 
ture study, conversation, class-time discussions, argumenta- 
tions, etc. It makes full and exhaustive treatment of typical 
subjects, organizes great varieties of important facts about definite 
topics and even delineates with sufficient fullness to reveal true 
causal sequences. This method may make valuable appeals to 
the powers of observation, imagination and reason, and 3''et in 
the end fall short of meeting the needs of boys and girls because 
of the fact that the method is pushed to extreme. 

Here are two extremes in the methods of teaching upper- 
grade geography. There is some value in each method but it is 
an exaggeration of value to push either method to the exclusion 
of the other. A graduate in either method falls short. Push 
the former drill method to extreme and the child becomes en- 
cyclopedic and goes out of school soon to forget all because he 
has no interesting content to give support and fixity to the in- 
numerable facts drilled upon. Push the development method 



90 



to the neglect of the drill and the pupil may grow "richer 
and richer in experience", but he will grow also into greater and 
greater confusion, unless he is stopped to organize his matter 
and to drill upon his facts. 

It is the A sixth teacher of the United States and the seventh 
grade teacher of the continents who need to appreciate the above 
extremes in method. How to relate development and drill 
in this last course of geography is a question that each teacher 
must answer before she can lead her children into the most 
valuable and the most useful geographical knowledge. 

It may be said, then, that there are two kinds of geography 
for the sixth and seventh grades : 

First, a kind that is basic — the groundwork — the kind that 
presents facts in their relations, a rational geography that is 
presented by development methods. 

Second, a so-called practical geography that puts emphasis 
on drill, that appeals to memory, that, to some degree, brings 
order and organization out of confusions of facts. This drill 
geography, especially in the upper grades, centers around map 
drawing and map study. It should, as a rule, follow develop- 
ment work and should be given from one-fourth to one-third 
the allotted time. 



Objects in Teaching Grammar Grade Geography. 

First. To give practical information ; to give a definite 
amount of useful knowledge concerning the location and the 
character of the important places on the surface of the earth. 
Never before, in the history of the world, were geographical 
facts of such practical value to the rank and file of our popula- 
tion. The boys and girls of sixth and seventh grades must not 
be allowed to go thru school without acquiring a general ac- 
quaintance with the world's leading locations. Geography 
rightly taught will thus have its utilitarian value. 

Second. To furnish a foundation for all scientific inquiry. 
There is only one conception of geography that can support its 
claim to a large share of the time and thought of the grammar 
grades. It is the conception of it as a subject underlying all the 
sciences, the sciences of nature and science of man. A pupil 



91 



cannot go far in working up true geographical matter before he 
finds himself combining, relating, comparing, interpreting great 
masses of facts bearing upon geology, astronomy, physics, 
mechanics, history, economics, sociology, government and so on. 
Geography must be conceived as a bridge over which to pass 
backward and forward from the study of man's habitat to his 
activities and his limitations, and back again. It is the pass- 
way for all considerations of man and nature. If our present 
geographical instruction can be freed from tradition and con- 
servatism, if it can be brought abreast of contemporary scholar- 
ship, it will furnish a foundation for all other sciences and will 
become a unii|ue and indispensable element in elementarv edu- 
cation. 

Third. To lead children to see, in part, the process of adjust- 
ment of form.s of life to geographic environment; to show that 
while the earth is adapted to man's habitation, yet topography 
and climate operate singly and together in the distribution of 
life, and have played an important part not only in the making 
of history but in determining the customs and achievements 
of each people. 

Fourth. To show the interdependence of men. To show 
that under our present economic and social systems every sec- 
tion is entirely dependent upon every other section, every man 
upon other men. The East is dependent upon the West, the 
West upon the East, the North upon the South, Europe on 
America, and so on. This will give emphasis to what may be 
called the sociological value of geography study. No boy can 
go far in the upper-grade geography without feeling that the 
whole world is one vast neighborhood and every man a neighbor. 
Adverse conditions in one section affect all other sections. 
Civilized man e\'erywhere is dependent upon all regions of the 
earth to contribute to his food, shelter, clothing, and culture, 
and a large part of civilized effort is directed toward perfecting 
the modes of travel, commerce, and intercommunication be- 
tween these various regions. 

Fifth. To give disciplinary training to the child, 
(a) The Perceptive Faculties. 

The pupil's habits of observation, formed in the 
sttidy of Home Geography in the primary grades, fvir- 



92 



nish the base on which to build all other geographical 
knowledge. If he conies from the lower grades with 
no alertness, no wideawakeness to the things about 
him, if his senses are stupid and sluggish, if he has 
no powers of observation building up his ' ' sense 
world" there is not much to Avork on or develop. It 
is too late when pupils enter the grammar grades to 
give the elementary ''sense training" that belongs to 
the lower grades. 



(b) The Imagination. 

The right kind of geography teaching in the inter- 
mediate grades works outward from the Home Geog- 
raphy thru appeals to the imagination, and children 
are presented with such facts of interest as leave vivid 
images of the different peoples, regions, locations, etc. 
of the entire earth. 

(c) The Reason. 

The greatest result, psychologically, derived from 
the study of geography, comes in the grammar grades 
in the development of reason. This is true only when 
geography is made to present to these upper-grade 
students real problems. The causal idea is, then, the 
principal one and children are continually called upon 
to work it out. In any important topic, when certain 
facts have been presented, interesting questions or 
problems can be set up which require the pupil to com- 
bine and interpret facts. Take any of the great in- 
dustries wherever found over the world — mining, man- 
ufacturing, agriculture; take any of the great centers, 
any of the great commercial routes, an}^ of the great 
physical barriers and they all present their real live ques- 
tions. There is quite a difference between committing 
to memory facts and locations on the one hand, and 
the working out of problems on the other. Geography 
thus taught will give an insight into the world, will 
give an ability to interpret the world about us. As 
in the fourth and fifth years children are interested in 



93 



facts, so in the sixth and seventh grades they must 
be interested in deep-lying causes, must find pleasure 
in probing into questions. Each skillful teacher 
should recognize that there lies the spur to true in- 
terest and to strong effort on the part of children. 
Geography thus becomes a problem-solving study and 
the children exercise fully as much reason as in meet- 
ing and solving the problems of arithmetic. The 
general movement, then, up thru the course of study 
so far as psychology is concerned, is from the Obser- 
vational Geography of the primary grades, thru the 
Imaginative Geography of the intermediate grades, 
into the Rational Geography of the grammar grades. 

(d) Memory. 

All along the way, memory is trained by means of 
drills on the names, spelling and locations of rivers, 
lakes, mountains, islands, capes, indentations, pro- 
ducts, routes, cities, capitals, rulers, and so on. The 
mind, in order to outline, classify and organize, must 
hold a multiplicity of facts. 



General Reading for the Geography Teacher of the Higher Grades. 

Geography, as it is now being understood, is a science. It 
sets forth, in the end, the relations of life to geographic environ- 
ment. It has come to be more than description, more than 
''sailor geography", and more than a catalog of facts. It is 
generally recognized that the science of geography is in its 
)''Outh. Within the past decade, an entirely new interpretation 
of the nature and the scope of the subject has been given to the 
educational world. While the mutual relationship of human 
activities to geographic influences has been fundamental in the 
German system for more than a half century, yet in America 
but few educational institutions, even today, give teachers 
any training in this larger aspect of geography. A more thoro 
preparation of teachers of geography, and a more valuable 
eqtiipment will be the result of the present awakening to the 
facts and merits of a ''new geography". 



94 



With this in mind, every teacher who would enlarge her point 
of view, who would gain more scientific knowledge of geography, 
every teacher of the grammar grades who would keep pace with 
contemporary movements and methods, will do well to acquaint 
herself with many of the following books, all of which emphasize 
one or more aspects of a new geography. 

Earth and Man - - _ _ _ _ Guyot. 

New Basis of Geography - - - Redway. 
Geographical Influences in American 

History -------- Brigham. 

Child and Nature ------ Frye. 

The Relation of Geography and 

History - _--_--_ George. 
Natural Resources of the United 

States -------- Patton. 

Outlines of the Earth's History - Shaler. 
Story of our Continent - - - - Shaler. 

First Book in Geology - - - - Shaler. 

Nature and Man in America - - - Shaler. 
Aspects of the Earth ----- Shaler. 

Comparative Geography - - - - Ritter. 

The Teaching of Geography - - Giekie. 
How to Teach Geography - - - Parker. 
European Schools (Chapters in 

Geography) - - - - - - Klemm. 

International Geography . _ _ - Mills. 
The Earth as Modified by Human 

Action --------- Marsh. 

The Earth and Its Story - - - Heilprin. 
The Earth in the Past Ages - - Herrick. 
American Commonwealth (Chapter on 

the ''Home of the Nation") - Bryce. 
Man and his Work - - - - Herbertson. 

General Geography ------ Mill. 

Man and his Markets ----- Lyde. 

The Geography and the Geology of 

Minnesota -------- -Hall. 

Commercial Geography - - . - Redway. 
Commercial Geography - _ _ Adams. 



95 



Commercial Geography - - - - Tilden. 
Commercial Geography - - - - Gonner. 

( Gannett. 
Commercial Geography - - - i Garrison. 

( Houston. 
Manual of Geography - _ - - Red way. 
Hints on Teaching - _ - - Hathaway. 
Special Methods ----- McMurry. 

Manual in Geography - - - - McMurry. 

School Geography ----- Longman. 

Methods and Aids ------ King. 

Topics in Geography ----- Nichols 

Lessons in the New Geography - Trotter. 
Chalk ModeHng ------- Heffron. 

OUTLINE OF A SIXTH GEOGRAPHY IN DETAIL. 

General Ideas of North America. 

Approach the detailed study of the United States 
and North America with about two days' general re- 
view of the continents. All the continents might be 
once more named in order of size, in order of popula- 
tion, influence, etc. The relative position of North 
America to the other continents, to the hemispheres. 
Some of the leading meridians and parallels that cross 
the continent. Make use of the globe and maps. A 
general survey of the semester's work should be given 
the children. The political divisions of the continent 
should be named, the larger physical features of the 
continent noted, and so on. The purpose of this 
lesson should be to clear the way that children may 
not move blindly as they make a detailed study of 
each section. (See Map Studies, text, pages 63-64.) 

Introductory Study of the United States. 

A good general idea of the United States should be 
accjuired before the children are led into a regional 
study. This general idea should be developed from 
a consideration of the following topics: 



96 



(a ) Historic sketch of the people of the United States. 
(See text, section 40. Not more than one lesson.) 

(b) Location. 

With reference to North America and the other 
continents; with reference to the oceans. Its latitude 
and longitude limits. Study meridians 67, 75, 90, 105, 
120, also paralels 25, 30, 40, and 49. Locate the 
United States on the globe, and follow the above 
meridians and parallels. 

(c) Extent and Size. 

Compare with North America. With Europe and 
with Australia. 

Approximate distance across. Use scale. Approxi- 
mate number of miles between different prominent 
locations. 

(d) OutHne. 

Imaged as a whole. Sketched off-hand on paper 
and on board. Locate prominent parallels and 
meridians. (See above.) 

In the off-hand sketch show the Great Lakes, St. 
Lawrence, Atlantic Ocean, Chesapeake and Delaware 
Bays, Florida Peninsula, Gulf of Mexico, Rio Grande, 
the Pacific, Cape Cod, Hatteras, Sable, the West 
Indies, Vancouver. 

A sketch as indicated above is not intended to repre- 
sent the individual states, but it is to enable the pupil 
to conceive the general outline of the countr3^ No con- 
ception of a general outline of any country can be 
gained without some graphic representation, some 
form of map or diagram. There is, today, too much 
prejudice against a map. Its use has done violence, 
and yet it can be made the basis for teaching geo- 
graphy, provided the teacher does not allow it to take 
the living reality out of the subject. The boy and girl 
must be led, constantly, to look beyond the map to the 
country represented. As the teacher speaks St. 
Lawrence, Superior, or Florida Peninsula, the child 
must not image a particular page or spot in the book. 



97 



The right kind of mental pictures are absolutely es- 
sential to the acquisition of true geographical knowl- 
edge, but the right use of the map and diagrams need 
not defeat correct imagery. 

(e) Surface. 

The text presents an excellent treatment of the 
larger surface features of the United States. See Sec. 
41, pages 64-74. Particular attention is called to the 
relief and drainage map, pages 68-69. Whenever 
possible, children should make pencil and chalk relief 
maps, filling in outlines with the principal relief and 
drainage features. The construction of relief maps 
by chalk and crayon is sure to have a larger place in all 
grammar grade geography of the future. Noth- 
ing aids so much to fix the physical features in 
the mind. A self-made relief map talks aloud and pre- 
supposes a minute observation and careful judgment 
on the part of the maker. In such work, the child 
' 'feels" the larger physical divisions, the different sur- 
faces, the shape of the land and water bodies, the 
courses of rivers, the cause of lakes, etc., etc. 

In a study of the relief of the United States, note 
the following: 

The Appalachian Highlands. 

The Coastal Plain and the short, rapid rivers of the 
Atlantic slope. 

The Rocky Mountain System, the Pacific Highlands, 
the Great Interior Basin, the rivers flowing to the 
Mississippi, the Rio Grande, the Colorado, and the 
Columbia. 

The Mississippi Valley and its great system of rivers, 
the Western Plains, the Prairies, the St. Lawrence, the 
Red River of the North, and the Divide of Land. 

(f) Climate, 

The study of the location and relief of the country 
as a whole leads the student immediately to a consider- 
ation of climate, climatic influences and the different 
industrial and product belts. Any discussion of the 
great physical features is incomplete which does not 



98 



point out the effects on climate, rainfall, soil, produc- 
tions, occupations, distribution of life, modes of living, 
etc. The subject of climate must be studied in rela- 
tion to other physiographic topics. See the text. Sec. 
42, pages 74-75, for diagrams of heat belts, wind belts, 
and temperature regions. 



(g) Products. 



There are two methods of studying the products of 
the United States: (1) Working them out in detail 
with the special study of each section of states. (2) A 
general study of product belts or productive areas 
without so much reference to individual states and 
local influences. The author gives ten pages to the 
later method, pages 76-86. Either method may be 
pushed to extreme. Exaggerate the former wa}^ by 
taking up a detailed study of products, etc., with the 
study of each state, and it becomes a drill on lists of 
product-names w^th no reference to the physical and 
climatic causes at work in the locality, and with no 
reference to the larger physical divisions of the country. 
Push the second method to extreme and the study be- 
comes too general, ignoring the many causal forces and 
modifying conditions of each locality. 

Inasmuch as the adopted text gives such a unique 
treatment of product belts, pages 76-88, it is recom- 
mended that this larger, more general study of produc- 
tions precede the study of each section of states, and 
that later, as the different states are studied in detail, 
specific regard be given to local physical and climatic 
causes. Fry© places a creditable emphasis upon one 
principle; — that the ' ' vdtal geography, political geo- 
graphy and commercial geography of the world, grow 
out of and are dependent upon the physical geography 
of the vvorld". This is applicable to the United States 
as well, and the principle is embodied in the twelve 
pages devoted to the study of industrial belts and pro- 
duct areas, but the teacher should always hold in mind 
that these pages are general in point of view. 



99 



The twelve pages of the text, above referred to, should 
be taken up as reading lessons and largely supple- 
mented. There is but very little call and opportunity 
for drill work in this kind of study. It is a time for 
oral discussion and much reproduction. The map 
should be tised freely in the study of these belts, and 
there is no objection to summing up the study with 
self-made product-maps with mounted materials. The 
teacher will find much aid in such books as Dodge's 
Reader, Chap., IV, V and VI. Chase and Clow's 
Stories of Industry, 2 Vol. Lane's Industries of 
To-day. Lane's Triumphs of Science. Rocheleau's 
Great American Industries, 2 Vol. 



Sectional Study of the States. 

Apportionment of Matter and Time. 

The author devotes thirty-four pages to his treat- 
ment of the different sections of states, pages 88-122, 
with a special supplement of ten pages on Minnesota 
(See Appendix.) Teachers must carefully calculate the 
amount of time at their disposal for each section. 
The following apportionment is suggested : New Eng- 
land, two weeks; Middle Atlantic States, two weeks; 
Southern States, both eastern and western sections, 
three weeks; Central States, both eastern and western 
sections, three weeks; Minnesota, special supplement, 
one week; Western States, two weeks. This will mean 
twelve weeks to the sectional study, allowing three or 
four weeks for the introductory study of the United 
States as outlined above, and three or fovir weeks to a 
concluding study of North America according to an 
outline which follows below. 



The Order of Procedure. 

There are at least three steps in the detailed study of each 
section : 

First , The Approach and General View. 



tora 



100 



Second, The Study of Typical Topics. 
Third, The Drill. ' ■ 

Not more than a lesson or two should be given to the approach 
and general stud^^ of each section. The body of the time should 
be about eqvially divided between the stud}^ of chosen topics and 
the drill on map making, map study, and locations. 

It is not deemed necessary to give a detailed outline for the 
study of each section of states in the countr5^ An outline follows 
on the New England states, which is intended to be suggestive. 
Teachers should feel free to take it in its spirit rather than 
literally, and apply it to all other sections. 

The New England States. 

The approach and general view constitutes the first step in 
the study of any section of states. In approaching a detailed 
study of the New England States, for instance, lead the class 
into an oral discussion of the location, extent and size, general 
outline, relief and drainage, and climate. These are first and 
fundamental. They determine all else, — life, occupations, 
industries, everything. 

As such topics are discussed lead the children to see beyond 
the map to New England itself. 

(a) Position. 

With reference to the remainder of the United 
States. With reference to Europe. What countries 
in Europe are in the same latitude? What principal 
meridians and parallels cross this section ? Latitude of 
northern Maine compared with that of northern 
Minnesota. 

(b) Extent and Size. 

Size of the states compared with Minnesota. The 
largest state, the smallest? Size in round numbers. 
Approximate distances across, distances from place to 
place. 

(c) Outline. 

Sketch off-hand. Do not sketch the outline as a 
whole first, and then attempt to put in the different 
states afterward. Pupils should not sketch the outside 
boundaries and then try to place the individual states 



101 



inside. Develop the sketch state by state and note the 
relative position of one to another. Show Penobscot 
Ba3% Massachusetts Bay, Cape Cod, Nantucket, Long 
Island. Show parallels 41, 45, 47 and meridians (w, 71 
and 73. 

(d) Relief, Drainage and Climate. 

Show prominent mountains, valleys, rivers, lakes, 
indentations. Discuss the effects of the Great Glacier— 
the ice sheet that once came down from the North, the 
moraine hills, sandy plains, the narrow coastal plain, 
the rocky surfaces and boulder-strewn soil, the falls 
and rapids, the swift streams and water power. Lead 
from the general discussion of physical features into 
a consideration of climate. What gives New England 
its characteristic climate? How does its climate de- 
termine or modify the conditions of life? The regular 
reading lesson might supplement the geography at 
this time with a study of ''Snow Bound", etc. 

The Study of Topics. 

The descriptive geography of each section should be organized 
about certain typical topics. This is to constitute the develop- 
ment work in the study of each section, by which the children are 
led to feel that there is a world of vital, interesting fact back of 
the map. It is in this work that the teacher gives emphasis to 
the unifying principle in grammar grade geography, namely, the 
principle of relationship. It is this method of bringing under 
common topics all related facts — physical, climatic, industrial, 
commercial, descriptive, etc., that is to furnish the central thread 
in all A sixth teaching. The text book can furnish but a limited 
and scanty portion of all the material for this work. It is the 
burden and yet the salvation of the successful teacher to accumu- 
late stores of material. Different teachers may feel free to select 
different topics for detailed treatment. McMurry, who proba- 
bly first conceived and elaborated the '' Type Method" has just 
published his ''Type Studies from United States Geography". 
This is intended to furnish twenty-five type studies to the inter- 
mediate teacher, designed to introduce children to the geography 
of the United States. The book will be quite suggestive, how- 



102 



ever, and even quite helpful to the A sixth teacher. In the 
further execution of the same author's plan, he contemplates an- 
other series of type studies of North America which will deal 
with the more complex and difficult topics, such as the larger 
manufacturing and commercial subjects and some of the large 
cities as centers of population and trade. The following are 
some of the subjects which may be treated topically in the 
study of the New England States : 

Pineries and Lumbering, Cod-Fisheries, and the Hoosac 
Tunnel. (See McMurry's Type Studies. Chase and Clow's 
Stories of Industry. Lane's Stories of Industry.) 

The Ice Industry of Maine and the Making of Portland. 

A Boston Ice Factory. (See Lane's Stories of Industr3^) 

The New England Quarries of Granite, Marble and Slate. 

The Maple and Sugar Industry. (See Lane's Stories of In- 
dustry.) 

New England Manufacturing, The Cotton Factories at Lowell, 
The Woolen Factories at Fall River, The Shoe Factories at Lynn. 
Watches at Waltham, The Arsenal at Springfield, etc. 

A Study of the Great Looms. New England Tanneries. 

Places of Interest: The Light Houses of the Coast, White 
Mountains, Plymouth, Bunker Hill, Concord and Lexington, 
Moosehead, Bar Harbor, Nantucket Island, Martha's Vineyard, 
Newport, The Great Uni\'ersities. 

Boston, ''The Athens of America". Why? Its harbors. 
Its navy yard. Its suburbs, railroads, historic interests and 
land marks. 

Follow the leading commercial routes of New England. The 
great railway lines, water-ways, canals, tunnels, etc. 

Such isolated sentences as ' ' Bangor is at the head of the tide 
water on the Penobscot river, which flows from the Maine forest 
region", should not be learned. If there is nothing more of 
description than that which can accompany the study of Bangor, 
ignore all. Children must not crowd their brains with lonely, 
isolated facts. 



Map Drawing, Map Study and Drill. 

In the study of any particular section, at least one-third of 
the entire time to be devoted to the study of each section 



103 



should be left for map study, off-hand map making, and drill 
upon localities. 

This is the last time the children are to study the United States 
in detail. They should not leave the study of any section, rich 
as that study may have been in descriptive matter, without a 
thoro drill on the map. It is largely memory work and while it 
should not constitute the first or sole work in geography, nor 
should it be abstracted from descriptive geography, yet it should 
have a final and prominent emphasis. 

Map drawing and map study are an essential part to all politi- 
cal and commercial geography. Map study and map drawing 
should be done by the children, frequently, in the study period 
and should be followed by directed map study and map drawing 
in the recitation time. Children should not spend extended time 
upon elaborate and carefully finished maps. They should have 
practice in the rapid execution of outlines on paper and on the 
board. Great accuracy of form, finished detail and artistic 
results should not be the aim. Some work with maps, as al- 
ready suggested, may accompany the oral discussion of the 
physical features, the climate, the interesting facts about pro- 
ductions, occupations, the people, the leading places of interest, 
in fact, all topical treatments, all descriptive matter; but, as a 
rule, the most extended map study and map drawing should 
close the work upon a section or a political division. When the 
time comes to systematize the facts previously presented, when 
the time comes to organize and memorize locations, then the 
drill side of the work is to be emphasized in carefully planned 
lessons. 

Maps should be sketched off-hand, at first from the book, or 
wall-map, afterwards from memory. It is sketched in the study 
period and then produced and often reproduced in the recitation. 
The map of any particular section of the states should be sketch- 
ed on paper and on the board in from three to five minutes, and 
the teacher should then call for the class to designate the loca- 
tion of prominent cities, rivers, lakes, capes, mountains, etc., etc. 

All highly colored and elaborately finished maps, if required 
at all, should come as a special exercise as the class is ready to 
leave a section. 

Geography is more than a knowledge of names, more than an 
exercise of memory, and yet, if the life side of each particular 



104 



section has been properly appreciated and presented there is a 
sure, practical value to a certain amount of this working with 
the ''spots on the map". 

Special Topics for Detailed Study in Other Sections of the 
United States. 

The suggestions offered above on teaching the geography?- of 
New England may be applied to every other section of states. 
The same method of approach, the same regard for descriptive 
geography, and the same emphasis on map study and map 
drawing should be observed. 

The following special topics are among the many that may be 
treated in the different sections of states : 
(a) Middle Atlantic States. 

The Hudson. (See McMurry's ''Type Studies".) 

New York City. (See Carpenter.) 

New York Harbor. 

Castle Garden. 

Ellis Island. 

Statue of Liberty. 

The Brooklyn Bridge. 

Erie Canal and its Influence. 

The Locks at Lockport. (See McMurry's North 

America.) 
Buffalo Markets. 
Niagara Falls, Welland Canal, and the Commerce of 

the Lakes. (See ''Type Studies".) 
Salt Beds at Syracuse. 

The Coal Mines of Pennsylvania. (See Chase and 
Clow's Stories of Industry, Vol. I; also Rocheleau's 
Great American Industries.) 
Anthracite and Bituminous Coal. 
Oil Wells Along the Alleghany. 
Iron Mines. (See Chase and Clow.) 
The Glass Factories at Pittsburg and Wheeling. 
The Fruit Orchards. 
The City of Philadelphia. 
The Mint at Philadelphia. (See Carpenter.) 
The Construction of Warships. 



105 



City of Baltimore. 

Oyster Industry on the Chesapeake. (See Carpenter.) 
The New Jersey Beach in Summer. 

The District of Columbia and the Capitol at Wash- 
ington. 
The Tobacco Farms of Virginia. (See Carpenter.) 
Old Point Comfort. Fort Monroe. Mt. Vernon. 
The James River. (See ''Type Studies".) 

(b) The Southern States. 

The Cotton Plantations and Slavery. (See ' "Type 

Studies". See also Carpenter.) 
Sugar Cane and the Sugar Industry. (See Rocheleau's 

"Great American Industries".) 
The Rice Fields of the Carolinas. (See Carpenter.) 
The City of Charleston. 

Orange Groves in Florida. (See ''Type Studies".) 
Florida Fruit Orchards. 

Southern Forests and Southern Lumbering. 
The Tanneries of the South. (See Chase and Clow's 

Stories of Industry, Vol. II.) 
The Everglades. 

Ranch Life. (See Lane's Industries of Today.) 
The Delta. 
Trip on the Lower Mississippi. (See ''Type Studies'' 

and Carpenter. ) 
New^ Orleans as a Center. 
Indian Territory and the Reservations. 
Oklahoma and its History. 
Galveston and its History. 
El Paso as a Gateway. 

(c) The Central States. 

The Glacial Drift. (See Dodge's Reader, Chap. XI.) 

Lumbering in the North. 

Corn and Wheat Regions and Industries. (See 

Rocheleau's Great American Industries.) 
The Gas Fields of Indiana. 
The Caves of Kentucky. 

The Blue Grass Farms and Kentucky Stock. 
The Tobacco Warehouses at Louisville 



106 



The Iron and Copper Mines of the Lakes. 

(See Rocheleau's Great American Industries.) 
Chicago as a Center. 
The Lake Ports and Lake Traffic. 
The Flouring Industry of Minneapolis. 
The Black Hills. 
The Prairies 

A Typical Farm. (See "T^^pe Studies''.) 
Great Commercial Routes of the Central States. 
St. Louis as a Center. 
Etc., etc. 

(d) Western States. 

''The Wonderland of America." (See Carpenter.) 

The Mountain Systems and the Great Plains. 

Farming by Irrigation. (See McMurry's "Type 
Studies".) 

The Great Basin. (See ''Type Studies".) 

Yellowstone Park. (See Carpenter.) 

A Gold Mine in California. (See McMurry's "Type 
Studies", Chase and Clow's Stories of Industries, 
and Carpenter.) 

A Mining Camp in Colorado. (See Carpenter's ''A 
Day in a Silver Mine".) 

Salt Lake City. (See Carpenter.) 

In the Yosemite. 

The Big Trees. 

California Fruits and Flowers. 

The Colorado Canons. 

Salmon Fisheries of the Columbia. (See ''Type 
Studies", "Taking a Claim"; also, the Youth Com- 
panion Series for "Our Country West".) 

(e) Some summary topics for development and com- 
position work. 

The relation of the L^nited States to the other 

divisions of the continent. 

Influence of steam, electricity and modern in\'en- 

tions upon our own civiHzation. 

The dependency of the different sections ori one 

another. 



107 



Modes of travel and the routes of transportation. 

The rapid growth of cities. 

The development of railways in the United States. 

The influence of the printing press upon our national 

life. 

The steady growth of ovir union. 

(See Tarr and McMurry's North America, pp. 103- 
135.) 



The Importance of Topical Recitations. 

The political divisions of North America should now be taken 
up topically. The time has come when children should go after 
topics themselves. It is the teacher's business to direct the 
N'aried reading in the preparation of each lesson. The recitation 
is the pupil's time to talk. It is not a well conducted recitation 
unless the pupils ''recite". A sixth grade recitation in geogra- 
phy is not a time for reading, either on the part of the pupils or 
the teachers. It is a time for measuring results, for expressing 
and comparing ideas. The child must be made to feel respon- 
sible. The teacher should name the topic and the children 
should be required to recite upon it. Teachers, as a rule, do too 
much talking, ask too many questions, interfere with free ex- 
pression, with a flow of thought, and with a fluency and readiness 
of expression. Let children know that they are to be held re- 
sponsible for a topical recitation and it will urge them on to 
constant and more thoro preparation. Do not lecttire. Direct 
children to the material in the preparation of these lessons and 
demand that they come to the recitation informed upon the 
topics assigned. 

Here is the time to teach children how to stud}^ how to organ- 
ize the thought gained from the printed page. Too many pupils 
waste three-fourths of their time in learning a geography or 
history lesson from a book. There is too much disregard to this 
waste of time, to the lack of intensity of effort on the part of 
children. The end of scholastic discipline is the power to get 
the largest amount of knowledge and truth from the printed 
page in the shortest possible time. 

Much interesting reading for the children is available in the 
Youth Companion Series and the Little Journey series. 



108 



Detailed Study of North America. 

Three or four weeks should be given to a study of the other 
pohtical divisions of the continent, two weeks on Canada and 
Alaska and Danish America, one week on Mexico and the West 
Indies, and one week on Central America, The Hawaiian 
Islands and the Philippines. 

In the study of North America the following outline is sug- 
gested for topical treatment. The teacher will need to plan her 
time carefully. 

1. Canada. 

(a) Location. With reference to the United States; to 
England and Europe. Its latitude limits. Follow 
east to Europe, parallels 50, 60, 70. Use the globe. 
Follow south the meridians 60, 75, 90, 105. 120 

(b) Size. Compared with the United States. With 
Europe. 

(c) Outline. Off-hand sketch of North America, show- 
ing the general outline of Canada (Not the political 
divisions.) Show the Arctic Ocean, Baffin's Bay, Hud- 
son Bay, Labrador, Newfoundland, Gulf of St. Law- 
rence, Nova Scotia, Bay of Fundy, the L^nited States 
(as a whole), VancouA^er Island, and Alaska. 

(d) Surface and Drainage. Note the main physical 
divisions only. The Great Central Plain, extending 
northward thru Canada from the United States; the 
Rocky Mountains; the St. Lawrence; the Great Lakes; 
Nelson River; and Lake Winnipeg; Mackenzie River 
and its system of lakes. 

(e) Climate. As affected by latitude. As affected by 
ocean currents. 

(f) Productions and Occupations. The millions of 
square miles of forests, and the lumbering industry. 
Salmon, cod, and mackerel fishing industries. Seals, 
sealing, and sealers. Agriculture and ranching. 
Mining and the Klondike region. 

(g) The People. Why so many French? Why Canada 
happens to belong to England? 

(h) The Seven Provinces and their capitals. The four 

organized territories. Newfoundland. Greenland. 



109 



Iceland and the islands north of North America. 
The government of Canada. The Governor-General 
and Parliament. 

(i) The Cities. Montreal, the ''New York of Canada". 

Why? Its favorable location. Its commercial routes. 
Its people. Population. The Victoria Bridge. Mt. 
Royal in the rear. The Winter Festivals, etc. 

Quebec. The ''Gibraltar of America". Why? 
The ''Plains of Abraham". The Citadel. Its histor- 
ical associations. Its people. Why so many French? 
Such isolated sentences as ' ' Quebec is in the center of 
a very productive area" should not be learned. If 
there is nothing more of fact and interest than that to 
teach about Quebec, it would be better to leave all 
untaught. 

Ottawa, as a capital. Its government buildings. 
Its Governor-General and the Parliament. The 
water power at Ottawa. 

Toronto. Its Harbor. Its beauty. Its buildings, 
etc Halifax. St. Johns. Winnipeg. Victoria. 

(j) Places of interest in Canada. Niagara Falls; 

Quebec; Tides in the Bay of Fundy; the Banks of 
Newfoundland; Saguenay River; The Canadian 
Forests; the Wheatfields; the Northern Pacific and its 
influence; the Lakes; the Klondike; the Magnetic Pole. 

(k) Drill on the map stvidy of Canada. 

2. Alaska. 

Area, location, latitude, climate, rainfall its history, 
its purchase by the United States Why? Its 
wealth and resources. Sitka, the climate. Dawson 
City and the Klondike. The Sealing Industry and 
the Pribilof Islands. Whaling. The government of 
Alaska. 

3. Mexico. 

Location with reference to the Western Hemisphere. 
Its latitude; relief and climate; industries and occupa- 
tions; history. Cortez, Balboa, the Spanish, the War 



110 



with Mexico. Causes of its present backward civiliza- 
tion. A study of the City of Mexico. The govern- 
ment. 

4. The West Indies. 

Why so named? Its divisions. The Greater An- 
tilles. Relation of the different islands to other 
countries. Reasons for so large a Spanish popula- 
tion. Columbus and San Salvador. Study of Havana 
as a city. The Spanish War. (Briefly.) The Ba- 
hamas. A paragraph on the Bermudas. 

5. The Republics of Central America. 

Latitude. The people. Leading cities. The rain- 
fall. The jungles. The forest products. Other pro- 
ductions. Occupations. The earthquakes. The Pan- 
ama Canal. The Nicagarua route. 

6. The Hawaiian Islands. 

Their history. The people and the island life. 
Industries. Government. The Climate. Volcanoes. 
Honolulu as a city. The islands as a coaling station. 

7. The Philippines. 

History. Climate. Resources and industries. The 
people. Manila as a city. The Government and edu- 
cation of the islands. 

8. Review and Drill. 

In all drill work, and along with the map drawing, children 
should become accustomed to writing geographical names. 
Make all drill on locations include that of spelling and pro- 
nunciation, as well. Make much use of the pronouncing vocab- 
ulary in the Appendix. Do not allow children to finish this 
year's work mispronouncing and misspelling the geographical 
names. 



Ill 



SEVENTH GRADE. 



Scope of the Work and Apportionment of Time. 



B Seventh. 

(1) Review. 

The B seventh work should open with a review of 
North America. About two weeks may be spent in a 
rapid-fire drill on the geographical facts of the different 
political divisions. The descriptive geography of the 
United States and North America belongs to the A 
sixth grade and no time should be given here for the 
development work in this study. 

(2) Advance. 

South America, six weeks. 
Asia, seven weeks. 
Africa, three weeks. 
Australia, one week. 



A Seventh. 

Europe, fifteen weeks. 

Review of the Geograph}^ of the World, four weeks. 

The Guiding Principle. 

A criticism that can be justly made against much of our 
grammar grade geography teaching is that it has dealt out to 
children a mess of unrelated facts ending in a disagreeable mix- 
ture or confusion of ideas. Facts have not been organized and 
properly related, important topics have not been selected and 



112 



elaborately treated, and the upper grade geography teaching 
too often has consisted of a general survey of superficies. There 
has been no ground-work, no basal principle, no unifying idea, 
guiding the teacher day after day. Rivers, lakes, cities, capes, 
islands, baj^s, gulfs, and so on, have been named and located; 
products, exports and imports have been enumerated; occupa- 
tions have been mentioned; the countries, rulers, and capitals 
have been memorized; peoples have been described; stories, 
legends, and myths haA'e been told and reproduced; the so- 
called ''development work" may have been much emphasized 
or the children may have been drilled and drilled on facts, and yet 
the same children go out of school soon to forget all, with no prac- 
tical knowledge and with no appreciation of geography as a sci- 
ence. Facts have not been properly related. There has been no 
principle, for example, relating physiographic and climatic topics 
with industrial, commercial, political, historical and social topics. 
It is this principle of relationship that is to guide the teacher, the 
principle by which the numerous facts of interest drawn from 
different sources will be brought together into central and larger 
topics. The central thread which will bind together large bodies 
of varied material is the idea of relationship — the idea of cause 
and effect. It is the causal idea, then, that is to furnish the new 
working principle. It is purely traditional, artificial and un- 
natural to isolate the various parts of a complex subject from one 
another and treat them separately. It will not do, then, to 
treat climate, the industries of men, the natural products, the 
location of cities, commerce, trade routes, and surface features 
as isolated topics without reference to the intimate and organic 
relationship among them. 

The Unit of Study. 

The usual method has been to make the political divisions the 
unit of study. There are good reasons for this. Different 
states and nations have played important individual parts; it 
is easy to designate certain political and territorial units clearly; 
the universal usage of books and of educated people has fixed 
these divisions in our language and in our thoughts as units, 
and there are still other reasons why the political unit, such as 
Brazil, France and England, should be continued as titles of im- 



113 



portant geographical topics. So the study of seventh grade geog- 
raphy is to be organized around nationalities, as heretofore, 
but the study should not only treat th*em as separate units, 
emphasizing characteristic marks, but it should study in rela- 
tionship the physiography, productions, customs, language, com- 
merce, literature, government, and national life. Each nation, 
in fact, is a large complex unit; and the series of nationalities, 
such as Argentina, China, Russia, and England must constitute 
a most important series of minor geographical topics, all studied 
in relation. The more complex unit, as France, Turkey, etc., is, 
to a large degree, a social unit, rather than a physical, political, 
or economical, for each nationality grasps into one thought a 
great variety of closely related elements. Geography is a com- 
plex study, then, fundamental to all other sciences, such as 
physiography, meteorology, geology, astronomy, biology, sociol- 
ogy, history, or government, and the tendency has been to treat 
it from the standpoint of these distinct sciences — a little of this, 
a little of that, all unrelated. If the school is to be justified in 
giving any large share of time in the grammar grades to geog- 
raphy, the subject must be conceived as underlying all the other 
sciences, the sciences of nature and sciences of man. No 
teacher can lead her children very far into true geographical 
matter before she finds the facts presented, closely bearing upon 
geology, astronomy, physics, mechanics, economics, sociology, 
and so on. Geography, then, when rightly conceived, when 
properly taught, will become one of the most valuable elements 
in the early education of children. 

For a further emphasis of this broader view of geography, the 
teacher is asked to read McMurry's ''Manual of Geography" 
from page forty-two on. Also, to study carefully Redway's 
"New Basis of Geography", Chap. IV, ''Distribution of Life"; 
Chap. V, "Effects of Topography"; Chap. VI, "Effects of Topog- 
raphy and Climate on the Economical History of the United 
States"; Chap. VII, ''Emphasis of Essentials"; "Chap. VIII, 
"Pictures, Models and Globes", and Chap. IX, ''Maps and 
their Uses". A full list of books suitable for upper grade 
teachers was outlined above for the A sixth teachers. 



114 



Ends to be Realized. 

In view of the basis laid in the foregoing paragraphs for gram- 
mar grade geography, the teacher should keep in mind the main 
objects in view in the presentation of such matter to children. 

1. Practical Information. 

2. A Foundation for All Scientific Knowledge. 

3. Appreciation of the Process of Adjustment of the Vari- 

ous forms of Life to Geographical Environment. 
4 A Sociological Value Showing the Interdependence of 

Men. 
5. Disciplinary Value. 
(See A sixth outline.) 

It is the disciplinary or psychological value that cannot be 
overstated to a seventh grade teacher. She is no longer to put 
first the observational home geography — the nature study — of 
the primary grades, nor the imaginative geography of the inter- 
mediate grades, and she is even to subordinate the memory work 
in the grammar grades — all that she may now present a Rational 
Geography. The greatest value must come in the upper grades, 
then, thru an appeal to the reason and judgment. If the facul- 
ties of reason and analysis are ever to be strengthened in the 
elementary school it must be in the last years. Unless geography 
is made now to present real problems, unless the causal idea is 
ever present, unless children are given opportunity for solving 
problems, there can be no exercise and development of these 
rational faculties. So in the upper grades, children are led 
beyond books out into the real world, into the home world once 
more, and into the world abroad, to study facts in their causes 
and in their relation to man and nature. 

Home Geography, then, while it begins in the primary grades, 
is never to be understood until pupils in the higher grades are 
led deeper into the interpretation of phenomena, deeper than the 
mere observation and learning of facts. Children are never to 
interpret the world about them until they work out the problems 
of its phenomena on the basis of cause and effect. Thru the 
appeal to reason and judgment these children are now led for 
the first time in their lives to interpret in part the world about 
them and, therefore, the world abroad. 



115 



Steps in the Teaching Process. 

In the presentation and study of each of the continents 
assigned to both the B and A seventh grades, there are at least 
three distinct steps: 

1. Approach to the Continent and the General View. 

2. Selection of Typical Topics for Elaborate Treatment. 

3. Organization of Facts and Drill. 

While the causal idea should be the controlling one in all 
of the above steps, it will manifest itself and incorporate itself 
more in the second, where the various minor topics are developed 
and discussed in detail and in their relations to the more general 
topic — the political unit. The third step should appeal less to 
the reason and more to memory, depending largely on map 
study and drill to give outline, clearness and fixedness to the 
numerous facts presented. 



The First Step. 

The following outline of the First Step should serve for the 
approach to each of the different continents and to each political 
unit assigned for seventh year work. 

A good general idea of each continent should be acquired 
before the children are led into the reg'onal study. This idea 
may be developed from a consideration of the following topics: 

(a) Location. 

With reference to hemisphere, other continents, 
oceans, latitude, longitude, zones, etc. With reference 
to the United States so far as latitude and longitude 
are concerned. Follow leading parallels and merid- 
ians to other lands. 

(b) Extent and Size. 

Compared with other continents. Approximate 
distances from point to point. Apply the scale in 
following great commercial routes. 

(c) Outline. 

Children should draw off-hand sketches of the con- 
tinent, first from the book and then from memory, 
showing the characteristic form, leading irregularities 



116 



of outline, islands, surrounding waters, etc. In these 
first general outlines the political divisions should not 
be represented. Show the leading parallels and 
meridians. 

(d) Relief and Drainage. 

The above outline maps may be carried on into cray- 
on relief maps. A greater effort should be made on 
the part of teachers and pupils to build up both by 
pencil and chalk, the relief of each continent. The 
larger physical divisions, the lake regions, the courses 
of rivers, the different surfaces are thus vividly im- 
pressed upon the child's mind. Special attention is 
called to the relief maps of the text. They are funda- 
mental and should be carefully studied. 

(e) Climate, Productions and Occupations. 

No student can gain clear ideas of the location and 
the relief of any continent without, at the same time, 
acciuiring ability to form some conclusions about the 
climate, the great product belts, and the possible indus- 
tries. The teacher should keep in mind, however, that 
it is only the larger conclusions that should be drawn 
while the class is working with the continent as a 
whole. The more detailed study of climate, products 
and industries should be left for the study of each 
division. So while it seems advisable to begin the 
study of each continent by a brief survey of physical 
and climatic conditions, the more important thing, 
after all, will be to bring these physical causes into 
close relation to the special topics, later, when they 
are treated in full. 

(f) The Approach to Each Political Division. 

The abo\'e outline of the Fiist Step to the continents 
should receive some consideration in the approach to 
each political unit. Children should first be given 
an idea of the location, size, outline, relief and 
physical features of the country studied. These lead 
immediately to the topics of climate, products and 
occupations. This is a subordinate step in the teach- 



117 



ing process, however, or rather it leads at once to the 
second step, where the various topics of interest and 
the study of each nationahty are taken up in detail. 



The Second Step — The Study of Special Topics. 

The first step, as outlined abo\'e, should not be allowed a \-ery 
large proportion of the time set aside for any continent or coun- 
try. More than one-half the whole time for the study of the larger 
political units like France, Germany, or Egypt should be spent 
in somewhat elaborate development of the related sub-topics. 

Not only should the pupils work out the general approach, the 
topography and climate, but they should select for somewhat 
detailed consideration a few prominent topics, w^hich bring out, 
in a striking way, the pronounced characteristics of the people 
and country. If France is under discussion, Paris as a capital, 
a center of art, fashion and amusement, should furnish a topic. 
The production of wine, another. So, the manufacturers of silk, 
the French vineyards, the peasant life, and so on. 

In Germany quite a different st^de of characteristic topics 
should be selected. The German army and military system, 
with the Emperor at the head. The German opera. The popu- 
lar concert. The Rhine. The great iron manufacture. Etc. 

A few characteristic topics in each country of the world, fully 
described, will gi\'e more geography and clearer notions of each 
nation than a catalog of products, industries, cities, etc., as is too 
often customary in teaching. But even this topic-method pushed 
exclusively, would end unsatisfactorily, as it would eliminate all 
the political map studies, and all the practical drill on names, 
locations, boundaries, etc. As said before, however, at least one- 
half the time in the grammar grade should be given to a de\'elop- 
ment of all the \'arious geographical elements or factors entering 
into the make-up of each nationality, but at the same time, or 
probably following the development work, the children should 
be thoroly drilled in map making and map study. 

The following outline is intended to furnish seventh grade 
teachers with a suggestive list of topics in the study of each con- 
tinent. Not all of the topics proposed should receive elaborate 
treatment. The teacher mav feel free to select, and, more than 



118 



that, to adapt her selection and presentation to the needs of her 
class. She may find it necessary and profitable to spend a whole 
lesson, or possibly, several lessons, upon a certain single topic; 
but as many times she should dispose of three, four, or a half 
dozen topics named in a single lesson. 



Special Topics in South America. 

Frye. Sec. 88-95. 
McMurry's South America. 
Carpenter's South America. 

The South American Republics (The World and its People 
Series). 

The great physical divisions — the Andes, the Selvas 
and the Amazon System, the Llanos and Orinoco, the 
Pampas and Plata, the Brazilian Highlands and High- 
lands of Guiana. The unpopulated areas of the con- 
tinent. The regions deficient in rainfall. The re- 
gions of excessive rainfall. The animal life of South 
America. The people. The Governments. The Mon- 
roe Doctrine. Rio de Janeiro as a center. The coffee 
industry. Bahia and Para. The diamond industry. 
South American forests and their products, such as 
dyewoods, cabinet woods, cacao, cinchona, rubber, 
nuts, barks, etc. Buenos Aires as a center. Wheat 
fields of Argentina. Ranches and ranges. Aconca- 
gua. The desert of Atacama. The Chilian mines. 
Valaparaiso and Santiago. Bolivian silver mines. 
Lake Titicaca. La Paz and Sucre. The Llama, the 
Condor, and products of Peru. Lima and Callao. 
Quito, Chimborazo and Cotopaxi. Bogota. Panama, 
its people, government, products, and Canal. Venezuela 
and Caracas. The Guianas and their government, 
exports, etc. 

Special Topics in Asia. 

Frye. Sec. 106-116. 
McMurry. Asia. 
Carpenter. Asia. 
The World and Its People. 



119 



The teacher and class will do well to follow the 
adopted text, pages 161-172, in a general study of 
such topics as the highland regions, deserts, basins, 
slopes, Asiatic Islands, climate, plant life, animals and 
people. In the study of the nationalities such topics 
as the following suggest themselves : 

The Chinese as a People and Nation. Climate, cus- 
toms and religion. The Chinese Wall. The tea and 
silk industries. The Chinese cities, Peking, Canton, 
Hongkong, Shanghai, and Tientsin. The Grand Canal. 
The Great Rivers. Great mineral resources of China 
so little developed; why? Occupations of China, 
chiefly agricultural; why? Rice as the food staple of 
Asia. Manufacturing in China chiefly by hand; why? 
Chinese inventions. Chinese education. Railroads" 
in China. Japan, the ''Island Empire"; why? The 
Japanese, their government, customs, religion, rank 
compared with China and other nations. The Mikado. 
Japanese temples. The opium industry. Japanese 
education and Japanese students in America. Japan- 
ese cities, Tokio and Yohohama. Nipon and For- 
mosa. Korea, its government, capital and people. 
Siberia. The importance and significance of the great 
Siberian Railway. The struggle for the possession of 
Asia by Russia, Great Britain, Japan and other powers. 
The Philippines and their government. The East 
Indies. The Himalayas. The great rivers of India, 
their deltas, and their flood plains. The Dekkan and 
its lava plain. People of India, their density, their 
religion, education and government. The forests of 
India and their products, such as pines, firs, junipers, 
magnolias, cedars, teak, mango, pepper, cinnamon, 
spices, bamboos, palms, jungles. Animals of India. 
Famines and plagues, their influence on other 
countries. Farming in India. Calcutta, Delhi, Bom- 
ba3% Madras, Ceylon, Siam and Bangkok. Deserts of 
Asia. Valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates. The 
Holy Land, Dead Sea, Jordan, Galilee, Jerusalem and 
Bethlehem. 



120 



Special Topics in Asia. 

Carpenter's Africa should be consulted freely in the 
development of the following topics: 

The "Dark Continent"; why? African Explorers. 
Missionaries. The African Race, the historical reason 
why so many of this 'race in America. Rivalry of 
European nations for Africa. The political bound- 
aries, why so difficult to trace ? What are political 
boundaries? African plant life. Animal life. Exports. 
-Belts of climate. Suez Canal, its construction and in- 
fluence. Good Hope; why so named? Cape Verde, 
significance of the name. St. Helena; why? Red Sea; 
why so named? Its connection with history. The 
Nile, its delta, flood plains, annual overflow, place and 
influence in history, its pyramids, the Sphinx. African 
Harbors. The Cape to Cairo Railway, and its signifi- 
cance. The Sahara (detailed treatment). Nomads, a 
caravan trip. Sudan. Kongo Region. Madagascar. 
Madeira Islands. Cape Verde Islands. Canary Islands. 
Other Islands. South Africa, Cape Colony, Transvaal. 
Of what value are they? To whom do they belong? 
Connect with the South African War. Important 
African cities. Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the Barbary 
States. (See Questions on Africa, McMurry, page 460.) 

Special Topics in Australia. 

(See Frye's General Treatment.) 

The Great Barrier Reef. History of Australia (See 
McMurry). Australian ranches. Farms. Mines. 
Cities, Melbourne, Sidney, Adelaide. New Zealand 
(detailed treatment). The South Sea Islands and 
Islanders. (See Questions, McMurry, page 485.) 

Special Topics in Europe, 

The A seventh teacher should study carefully the 
outline given the A fifth teacher o'n Europe. 

The study of this continent presents almost an end- 
less variety of subjects suitable for detailed develop- 
ment and discussion. The following otitline pre- 
supposes a general treatment of Europe as a whole, 



121 



and so suggests only a limited number of topics, most- 
ly physiographic, commercial, industrial, or economic. 
Topics pertaining to the customs, fashions, charac- 
teristics of the people, points of interest in travel, 
views, etc., such as taken up by Carpenter, the People 
of the World series, etc., are purposely omitted in the 
outline below. The teacher may feel free to draw from 
these sources, which may be used for supplementary 
reading, but she should not fail to lead her children into 
a deeper regional study, emphasizing the causal and 
relation idea. 

The British Empire. Be sure that the pupils distinguish the 
difference between England, Great Britain, British Isles, and the 
British Empire. Advantage of England's position in the midst 
of the most progressive and most ci\41ized nations of the earth. 
England's limited area and the development of her resources 
compared with China and the United States. The English as a 
stock, historically, a combination of races. Advantage of cli- 
mate; why? Natural resources, soil, streams, harbors, mines, etc. 
Suppose the coal supply of Great Britain should fail. Coal is 
found near the sea ; what advantage ? Iron is found near the coal ; 
what significance and advantage? Truck raising is even more 
profitable in England than in the United States; why? Northern 
England is a great textile manufacturing region. Where is the 
similar region in the United States; why? Manufacttiring cen- 
ters. Trade and transportation, numerous railroads. Inven- 
tions of James Watt and Geo. Stephenson. The Thanies. 
Traffic with the United States. England's interest in the Suez 
Canal; why? English possessions over the earth. England's 
Government; why not a republic? The great English cities over 
the world. Ship building on the Clyde. English armies and 
navies at home and abroad. Causes contributing to make Eng- 
land a great maritime nation. Her navy compared with others. 

Paris. As a center of art, fashion and amusement. The 
influence of Paris on the life of the world. French peasantry 
and the French government. The French Revolution. French 
industries to-day as related to French life and ideas. (See 
Questions on France, McMurry, page 287.) 



122 



Brussels as a type of Belgium cities, its people, commerce, in- 
dustries, etc. 

Holland. The reclaimed lands of Netherlands. The Dutch 
cities. (See Questions, McMurry, page 221.) 

The Spaniards as a stock, compared with England. Spanish 
life and thrift. The Alhambra. Granada, and the Moors. 

Scandinavian hardihood. The Northmen and Normans in 
history. Industries of Norway and Sweden. (See Questions, 
McMurry, page 263.) 

The German Empire the Emperor, his army and navy. The 
German stock in history. Germany's rapid advance. Her 
thoro educational system. Influence of German Schools and 
scholars. Industries as related to the life and people of Germany. 
(See McMurry 's Questions.) 

Switzerland the physiography, climate, industries, customs, 
government, all studied in their organic relationship. 

Rome as a center. The tunnels of the Alps. The Italian 
climate and the Italian. The Alpine Glaciers and the Po. 

Turkey as a nationality. 

St. Petersburg as a center. The Czar and his government. 
Russian Peasantry. Climatic belts and Russian products and 
industries. 

All the above topics are merely suggestive of an aspect of 
geography teaching in the grammar grades that must not be 
slighted. 

The Final Step — Review and Drill. 

The third and last step in the teaching of a country is that of 
drill. 

At least one-fourth or one-third of the entire time devoted to 
an}^ continent should be given to ''memory geography", cen- 
tering around map drawing, map study, outlines of countries, 
rulers, capitals, important cities, influential ri\'ers, and so on, 
giving organization and emphasis to world-known geographical 
facts. 

Some map drawing has already been called for in the approach 
to the study of the continent. These first outline maps will give 
drill on the general surface features, the peninsulas, capes, 
islands, bays, etc. They will not deal with the political divisions, 
capitals, rulers, etc. They will come now. 



123 



While each country is being studied as a unit according to 
topical plan just outlined above, the teacher should take every 
opportunity to impress facts and locations. The wall map 
should be constantly before the child, the books may be open on 
the desk, the children's eyes may fall upon the map, and in all 
the discussions of cities as industrial centers, of industries, 
commercial routes, etc., the map should be continually leaving 
its impress. 

No study of any continent should conclude without a number 
of special lessons being set aside for map drawing, map study and 
drill. Children should be led to draw skilfully from memory. 
It is not deemed advisable or profitable to spend time on the 
drawing of indi\"idual political units such as Chili, India, or 
Egypt, but most of the time to the continents as a whole, repre- 
senting the political divisions in relationship. Such maps are 
outline maps, not relief maps, and should be drawn rapidly, in 
from three to five minutes. Then the locations of river systems, 
mountain ranges, capitals, cities, lakes, etc., etc., are designated 
by suitable marks. These are all outlined and drilled upon. 
Exports and imports, industries, etc.. are cataloged, and so on. 

This method of study should never be made the first and only 
method. It is the old-fashioned way, and has value, but it 
should constitute the closing studv of each continent. 



OCT 4 1905 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



019 953 603 5 























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